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Preacher 

AND 

Prayer 


In 


BOUNDS 


BV 

4012 

.B6 


HiimMHiHHimtHHU'.tl! 


LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


PRESENTED  BY 

Rev.  G-eorge  M,  Cummings 

BV  4012  ,B6  1907b 

Bounds,  Edward  M.  1835-191: 

Preacher  and  prayer 


% 


Logical 


PREACHER  AND 
PRAYER 


M .  .B  O  U  N  D  S 

Washington,  Ga. 


Three  things  make  a  divine— prayer^  medi' 
tation^  temptatioji. — Luther. 

If  you  do  not  pray,  God  -will  probably  lay 
you  aside  from  your  ministry  as  tie  did  me,  to 
teach  you  to  pray.  Remember  Luther's  maxim, 
*'  To  have  prayed  well  is  to  have  studied  well." 
Get  your  text  from  God,  your  thoughts,  your 
•words  —-Mc  Cheyne. 


The  Chbistian  Witness  Co. 

CmCAQO 


Copyright  1907 

by 
E.  M.  BOUNDS. 


Copyright  now  owned  by 
THE  CHRISTIAN  WITNESS  CO. 


Recreation  to  a  minister  musC  be  as  ivketting  is  "with 
the  mo^ver — that  is,  to  he  used  only  so  far  as  is  neces- 
sary for  his  ^vork.  May  a  physician  in  plague-time 
take  any  more  relaxation  or  recreation  than  is  necessary 
for  his  life,  xvhen  so  many  are  expecting  his  help  in  a 
case  of  life  and  death  ?  Will  you  stand  by  and  see 
sinners  gasping  under  the  pangs  of  death,  and  say: 
*^God  doth  not  require  me  to  make  myself  a  drudge  to 
save  them  ^"  Is  this  the  voice  of  ministerial  or  Chris' 
tian  compassion  or  rather  of  sensual  laziness  and  dim,' 
bolical  cruelty? — Richard  Baxter. 


Misemployment  of  time  is  injurious  to  the  mintt. 
In  illness  I  have  looked  back  ivith  self-reproach  on  days 
spent  in  my  study:  I  ivas  ■wading  through  history 
and  poetry  and  monthly  journals,  but  I  ivas  in  my 
study!  Another  man's  trifing  is  notorious  to  all  ob- 
servers, but  TX'hat  am  I  doing?  Nothing,  perhaps, 
that  has  a  reference  to  the  spiritual  good  of  my  congre- 
gation. Be  much  in  retirement  and  prayer.  Study 
f\e  honor  and  glory  oj your  Master, 

—Richard  Cecil, 
(3) 


I. 


Study  universal  holiness  of  life.  Your  ivhole  use- 
fulness depends  on  ihis^  for  your  sermons  last  but  an 
hour  or  two/  your  life  f  reaches  all  the  iveek.  If  Satan 
can  only  mnke  a  covetous  minister  a  lover  of  praise^  of 
fteasure^  of  good  eatings  he  has  ruined  your  ministry. 
Give  yourself  to  prayer y  and  get  your  texts ^  your 
thought Sf  your  words  from  God.  Luther  spent  his 
best  three  hours  in  prayer. 

— Robert  Murray  McCheynb. 

We  are  constantly  on  a  stretch,  if  not 
on  a  strain,  to  devise  new  methods,  new 
plans,  new  organizations  to  advance  the 
Church  and  secure  enlargement  and  effi- 
ciency for  the  gospel.  This  trend  of  the 
day  has  a  tendency  to  lose  sight  of  the  man 
or  sink  the  man  in  the  plan  or  organiza- 
tion. God's  plan  is  to  make  much  of  the 
man,  far  more  of  him  than  of  anything 
else.  Men  are  God's  method.  The  Church 
is  looking  for  better  methods ;  God  is  look- 
ing for  better  men.  *There  was  a  man  sent 
5 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

from  God  whose  name  was  John.**  The 
dispensation  that  heralded  and  prepared  the 
way  for  Christ  was  bound  up  in  that  man 
John.  "Unto  us  a  child  is  bom,  unto  us  a 
son  is  given."  The  world's  salvation  comes 
out  of  that  cradled  Son.  When  Paul  ap- 
peals to  the  personal  character  of  the  men 
who  rooted  the  gospel  in  the  world,  he 
solves  the  mystery  of  their  success.  The 
glory  and  efficiency  of  the  gospel  is  staked 
on  the  men  who  proclaim  it.  When  God 
declares  that  "the  eyes  of  the  Lord  run  to 
and  fro  throughout  the  whole  earth,  to 
show  himself  strong  in  the  behalf  of  them 
whose  heart  is  perfect  toward  him,"  he  de- 
clares the  necessity  of  men  and  his  depend- 
ence on  them  as  a  channel  through  which  to 
exert  his  power  upon  the  world.  This  vi- 
tal, urgent  truth  is  one  that  this  age  of  ma- 
chinery is  apt  to  forget.  The  forgetting  of 
it  is  as  baneful  on  the  work  of  God  as 
would  be  the  striking  of  the  sun  from  his 
sphere.  Darkness,  confusion,  and  death 
would  ensue. 

6 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

What  the  Church  needs  to-day  is  not 
more  machinery  or  better,  not  new  organ- 
izations or  more  and  novel  methods,  but 
men  whom  the  Holy  Ghost  can  use — men 
of  prayer,  men  mighty  in  prayer.  The 
Holy  Ghost  does  not  flow  through  meth- 
ods, but  through  men.  He  does  not  come 
on  machinery,  but  on  men.  He  does  not 
anoint  plans,  but  men — men  of  prayer. 

An  eminent  historian  has  said  that  the 
accidents  of  personal  character  have  more 
to  do  with  the  revolutions  of  nations  than 
either  philosophic  historians  or  democratic 
politicians  will  allow.  This  truth  has  its 
application  in  full  to  the  gospel  of  Christ, 
the  character  and  conduct  of  the  followers 
of  Christ — Christianize  the  world,  trans- 
figure nations  and  individuals.  Of  the 
preachers  of  the  gospel  it  is  eminently  true. 

The  character  as  well  as  the  fortunes  of 
the  gospel  is  committed  to  the  preacher. 
He  makes  or  mars  the  message  from  God 
to  man.  The  preacher  is  the  golden  pipe 
through  which  the  divine  oil  flows.  The 
pipe  must  not  only  be  golden,  but  open 
7 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

and  flawless,  that  the  oil  may  have  a  full, 
unhindered,  unwasted  flow. 

The  man  makes  the  preacher.  God  must 
make  the  man.  The  messenger  is,  if  pos- 
sible, more  than  the  message.  The  preach- 
er is  more  than  the  sermon.  The  preach- 
er makes  the  sermon.  As  the  life-giving 
milk  from  the  mother's  bosom  is  but  the 
mother's  life,  so  all  the  preacher  says  is 
tinctured,  impregnated  by  what  the  preach- 
er is.  The  treasure  is  in  earthen  vessels, 
and  the  taste  of  the  vessel  impregnates 
and  may  discolor.  The  man,  the  whole 
man,  lies  behind  the  sermon.  Preaching  is 
not  the  performance  of  an  hour.  It  is  the 
outflow  of  a  life.  It  takes  twenty  years  to 
make  a  sermon,  because  it  takes  twenty 
years  to  make  the  man.  The  true  sermon 
is  a  thing  of  life.  The  sermon  grows  be- 
cause the  man  grows.  The  sermon  is  force- 
ful because  the  man  is  forceful.  The  ser- 
mon is  holy  because  the  man  is  holy.  The 
sermon  is  full  of  the  divine  unction  because 
the  man  is  full  of  the  divine  unction. 

Paul  termed  it  "My  gospel ;"  not  that  he 
8 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

had  degraded  it  by  his  personal  eccentrici- 
ties or  diverted  it  by  selfish  appropriation^ 
but  the  gospel  was  put  into  the  heart  and 
lifeblood  of  the  man  Paul^  as  a  personal 
trust  to  be  executed  by  his  Pauline  traits, 
to  be  set  aflame  and  empowered  by  the 
fiery  energy  of  his  fiery  soul.  Paul's  ser- 
mons— what  were  they?  Where  are  they? 
Skeletons,  scattered  fragments,  afloat  on 
the  sea  of  inspiration!  But  the  man  Paul, 
greater  than  his  sermons,  lives  forever,  in 
full  form,  feature,  and  stature,  with  his 
molding  hand  on  the  Church.  The  preach- 
ing is  but  a  voice.  The  voice  in  silence 
dies,  the  text  is  forgotten,  the  sermon  fades 
from  memory ;  the  preacher  lives. 

The  sermon  cannot  rise  in  its  life-giving 
forces  above  the  man.  Dead  men  give  out 
dead  sermons,  and  dead  sermons  kill.  Ev- 
erything depends  on  the  spiritual  character 
of  the  preacher.  Under  the  Jewish  dispen- 
sation the  high  priest  had  inscribed  in  jew- 
eled letters  on  a  golden  frontlet :  "Holiness 
to  the  Lord."  So  every  preacher  in  Christ's 
ministry  must  be  molded  into  and  mastered 
9 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

by  this  same  holy  motto.  It  is  a  crying 
shame  for  the  Christian  ministry  to  fall 
lower  in  holiness  of  character  and  holiness 
of  aim  than  the  Jewish  priesthood.  Jona- 
than Edwards  said :  "I  went  on  with  my 
eager  pursuit  after  more  holiness  and  con- 
formity to  Christ.  The  heaven  I  desired 
was  a  heaven  of  holiness."  The  gospel  of 
Christ  does  not  move  by  popular  waves. 
It  has  no  self-propagating  power.  It  moves 
as  the  men  who  have  charge  of  it  move. 
The  preacher  must  impersonate  the  gospel. 
Its  divine,  most  distinctive  features  must  be 
embodied  in  him.  The  constraining  power 
of  love  must  be  in  the  preacher  as  a  project- 
ing, eccentric,  an  all-commanding,  self-ob- 
Uvious  force.  The  energy  of  self-denial 
must  be  his  being,  his  heart  and  blood  and 
bones.  He  must  go  forth  as  a  man  among 
men,  clothed  with  humility,  abiding  in 
meekness,  wise  as  a  serpent,  harmless  as 
a  dove ;  the  bonds  of  a  servant  with  the 
spirit  of  a  king,  a  king  in  high,  royal,  in- 
dependent bearing,  with  the  simplicity  and 
sweetness  of  a  child.     The  preacher  must 

lO 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

throw  himself,  with  all  the  abandon  of  a 
perfect,  self-emptying  faith  and  a  self-con- 
suming zeal,  into  his  work  for  the  salvatior 
of  men.  Hearty,  heroic,  compassionate, 
fearless  martyrs  must  the  men  be  who  take 
hold  of  and  shape  a  generation  for  God  If 
they  be  timid  timeservers,  place  seekers, 
if  they  be  men  pleasers  or  men  fearers,  if 
their  faith  has  a  weak  hold  on  God  or  his 
Word,  if  their  denial  be  broken  by  any 
phase  of  self  or  the  world,  they  cannot  take 
hold  of  the  Church  nor  the  world  for  God. 

The  preacher's  sharpest  and  strongest 
preaching  should  be  to  himself.  His  most 
difficult,  delicate,  laborious,  and  thorough 
work  must  be  with  himself.  The  training 
of  the  twelve  was  the  great,  difficult,  and 
enduring  work  of  Christ.  Preachers  are 
not  sermon  makers,  but  men  makers  and 
saint  makers,  and  he  only  is  well-trained 
for  this  business  who  has  made  himself  a 
man  and  a  saint.  It  is  not  great  talents 
nor  great  learning  nor  great  preachers  that 
God  needs,  but  men  great  in  holiness,  great 
in  faith,  ,great  in  love,  great  in  fidelity,  great 
II 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

for  God — men  always  preaching  by  holy 
sermons  in  the  pulpit,  by  holy  lives  out  of  it. 
Tliese  can  mold  a  generation  for  God. 

After  this  order,  the  early  Christians 
were  formed.  Men  they  were  of  solid 
mold,  preachers  after  the  heavenly  type — 
heroic,  stalwart,  soldierly,  saintly.  Preach- 
ing with  them  meant  self-denying,  self-cru- 
cifying, serious,  toilsome,  martyr  business. 
They  applied  themselves  to  it  in  a  way  that 
told  on  their  generation,  and  formed  in  its 
womb  a  generation  yet  unborn  for  God. 
The  preaching  man  is  to  be  the  praying 
man.  Prayer  is  the  preacher's  mightiest 
weapon.  An  almighty  force  in  itself,  it 
gives  life  and  force  to  all. 

The  real  sermon  is  made  in  the  closet. 
The  man — God's  man — is  made  in  the  clos- 
et. His  life  and  his  profoundest  convic- 
tions were  born  in  his  secret  communion 
with  God.  The  burdened  and  tearful  agony 
of  his  spirit,  his  weightiest  and  sweetest 
messages  were  got  when  alone  with  God. 
Prayer  makes  the  man;  prayer  makes  the 
preacher ;  prayer  makes  the  pastor. 

12 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

Ihe  pulpit  of  this  day  is  weak  in  pray- 
ing. The  pride  of  learning  is  against  the 
dependent  humility  of  prayer.  Prayer  is 
with  the  pulpit  too  often  only  official — a 
performance  for  the  routine  of  service. 
Prayer  is  not  to  the  modern  pulpit  the 
mighty  force  it  was  in  Paul's  life  or  Paul's 
ministry.  Every  preacher  who  does  not 
make  prayer  a  mighty  factor  in  his  own 
life  and  ministry  is  weak  as  a  factor  in 
God's  work  and  is  powerless  to  project 
God'f  cause  in  this  world. 
13 


11. 


But  above  all  he  excelled  in  prayer.  The  inivard- 
ness  and  tveight  of  his  spirit ,  the  reverence  and  solem- 
nity of  his  address  and  behavior ^  and  the  feivness 
and  fullness  of  his  words  have  often  struck  even 
strangers  tvith  admiration  as  they  used  to  reach  others 
Tvitk  consolation.  The  most  aivful,  living,  reverend 
frame  I  ever  felt  or  beheld,  I  must  say,  was  his  prayer. 
And  truly  it  was  a  testimony.  He  knew  and  lived 
nearer  to  the  Lord  than  other  men,  for  they  that  know 
him  most  will  see  most  reason  to  approach  him  -xitk 
reverence  and  fear. 

— William  Penn  of  George  Fox. 

The  sweetest  graces  by  a  slight  perver- 
sion may  bear  the  bitterest  fruit.  The  sun 
gives  life,  but  sunstrokes  are  death. 
Preaching  is  to  give  life;  it  may  kill.  The 
preacher  holds  the  keys;  he  may  lock  as 
well  as  unlock.  Preaching  is  God's  great 
institution  for  the  planting  and  maturing 
of  spiritual  life.  When  properly  executed, 
its  benefits  are  untold;  when  wrongly  exe- 
culted,  no  evil  can  exceed  its  damaging  re- 
sults. It  is  an  easy  matter  to  destroy  the 
14 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

flock  if  the  shepherd  be  unwary  or  the  pas- 
ture be  destroyed,  easy  to  capture  the  cita- 
del if  th^  watchmen  be  asleep  or  the  food 
and  water  be  poisoned.  Invested  with  such 
gracious  prerogatives,  exposed  to  so  great 
evils,  involving  so  many  grave  responsibil- 
ities, it  would  be  a  parody  on  the  shrewd- 
ness of  the  devil  and  a  libel  on  his  character 
and  reputation  if  he  did  not  bring  his  mas- 
ter influences  to  adulterate  the  preacher  and 
Vne  preaching.  In  face  of  all  this,  the  ex- 
clamatory interrogatory  of  Paul,  "Who  is 
sufficient  for  these  things?"  is  never  out  of 
order, 

Paul  says:  "Our  sufficiency  is  of  God, 
who  also  hath  made  us  able  ministers  of  the 
new  testament;  not  of  the  letter,  but  of  the 
spirit:  for  the  letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit 
giveth  life."  The  true  ministry  is  God- 
touched,  God-enabled,  and  God-made.  The 
Spirit  of  God  is  on  the  preacher  in  anoint- 
ing power,  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  in  his 
heart,  the  Spirit  of  God  has  vitalized  the 
man  and  the  word ;  his  preaching  gives 
life,    gives   life   as   the   spring   gives    life; 

15  ^ 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

gives  life  as  the  resurrection  gives  life; 
gives  ardent  life  as  the  summer  gives  ar- 
dent life;  gives  fruiful  life  as  the  autumn 
gives  fruitful  life.  The  life-giving  preach- 
er is  a  man  of  God,  whose  heart  is  ever 
athirst  for  God,  v^hose  soul  is  ever  follow- 
ing hard  after  God,  whose  eye  is  single  to 
God,  and  in  whom  by  the  power  of  God^s 
Spirit  the  flesh  and  the  world  have  been 
crucified  and  his  ministry  is  like  the  gen- 
erous flood  of  a  life-giving  river. 

The  preaching  that  kills  is  nonspiritual 
preaching.  The  ability  of  the  preaching  is 
not  from  God.  Lower  sources  than  God 
have  given  to  it  energy  and  stimulant.  The 
Spirit  is  not  evident  in  the  preacher  nor  his 
preaching.  Many  kinds  of  forces  may  be 
projected  and  stimulated  by  preaching  that 
kills,  but  they  are  not  spiritual  forces.  They 
may  resemble  spiritual  forces,  but  are  only 
the  shadow,  the  counterfeit;  life  they  may 
seem  to  have,  but  the  life  is  magnetized. 
The  preaching  that  kills  is  the  letter ;  shape- 
ly and  orderly  it  may  be,  but  it  is  the  letter 
still,  the  dry,  husky  letter,  the  empty,  bald 
i6 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

shell.  The  letter  may  have  the  germ  of 
life  in  it,  but  it  has  no  breath  of  spring  to 
evoke  it;  winter  seeds  they  are,  as  hard 
as  the  winter's  soil,  as  icy  as  the  winter's 
air,  no  thawing  nor  germinating  by  them. 
This  letter-preaching  has  the  truth.  But 
even  divine  truth  has  no  life-giving  ener- 
gy alone ;  it  must  be  energized  by  the  Spir- 
it, with  all  God's  forces  at  its  back.  Truth 
unquickened  by  God's  Spirit  deadens  as 
much  as,  or  more  than,  error.  It  may  be 
the  truth  without  admixture;  but  without 
the  Spirit  its  shade  and  touch  are  deadly, 
its  truth  error,  its  light  darkness.  The  let- 
ter-preaching is  unctionless,  neither  mel- 
lowed nor  oiled  by  the  Spirit.  There  may 
be  tears,  but  tears  cannot  run  God's  ma- 
chinery ;  tears  may  be  but  summer's  breath 
on  a  snow-covered  iceberg,  nothing  but 
surface  slush.  Feelings  and  earnestness 
there  may  be,  but  it  is  the  emotion  of  the 
actor  and  the  earnestness  of  the  attorney. 
The  preacher  may  feel  from  the  kindling  of 
his  own  sparks,  be  eloquent  over  his  own 
exegesis,  earnest  in  delivering  the  product 
2  17 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

of  his  own  brain;  the  professor  may  usurp 
the  place  and  imitate  the  fire  of  the  apos- 
tle; brains  and  nerves  may  serve  the  place 
and  feign  the  work  of  God's  Spirit,  and 
by  these  forces  the  letter  may  glow  and 
sparkle  like  an  illumined  text,  but  the  glow 
and  sparkle  will  be  as  barren  of  life  as  the 
field  sown  with  pearls.  The  death-dealing 
element  lies  back  of  the  words,  back  of  the 
sermon,  back  of  the  occasion,  back  of  the 
manner,  back  of  the  action.  The  great 
hindrance  is  in  the  preacher  himself.  He 
has  not  in  himself  the  mighty  life-creating 
forces.  -There  may  be  no  discount  on  his 
orthodoxy,  honesty,  cleanness,  or  earnest- 
ness ;  but  somehow  the  man,  the  inner  man, 
in  its  secret  places  has  never  broken  down 
and  surrendered  to  God,  his  inner  life  is 
not  a  great  highway  for  the  transmission 
of  God's  message,  God's  power.  Somehow 
self  and  not  God  rules  in  the  holy  of  holies. 
Somewhere,  all  unconscious  to  himself, 
some  spiritual  nonconductor  has  touched 
his  inner  being,  and  the  divine  current  has 
been  arrested.  His  inner  being  has  never 
i8 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

felt  its  thorough  spiritual  bankruptcy,  Us 
utter  powerlessness ;  he  has  never  learned  to 
cry  out  with  an  ineffable  cry  of  self-despair 
and  self-helplessness  till  God's  power  and 
God's  fire  comes  in  and  fills,  purifies,  cm- 
powers.  Self-esteem,  self-ability  in  some 
pernicious  shape  has  defamed  and  violated 
the  temple  which  should  be  held  sacred 
for  God.  Life-giving  preaching  costs  the 
preacher  much — death  to  self,  crucifixion  to 
the  world,  the  travail  of  his  own  soul.  Cru- 
cified preaching  only  can  give  life.  Crttci- 
fied  preaching  can  come  only  from  a  cru- 
cified man. 

19 


III. 


jOuring  this  affiiction  I  was  brought  to  examine  my 
life  in  relation  to  eternity  closer  than  I  had  done  ivhen 
in  the  enjoyment  of  health.  In  this  examination  rela- 
tive to  the  discharge  of  my  duties  toward  my  fellow- 
creatures  as  a  man^  a  Christian  minister ^  and  an  officer 
of  the  Churchy  I  stood  approved  by  my  own  conscience; 
but  in  relation  to  my  Redeemer  and  Saviour  the  result 
was  different.  My  returns  of  gratitude  and  loving 
obedience  bear  no  proportion  to  my  obligations  for  re- 
deeming, preserving,  and  supporting  me  through  the 
vicissitudes  of  life  from  infancy  to  old  age.  The 
coldness  of  my  love  to  Him  who  first  loved  me  and  has 
done  so  much  for  me  overwhelmed  and  confused  tnej 
and  to  complete  my  unworthy  character,  I  had  not  only 
neglected  to  improve  the  grace  given  to  the  extent  of 
my  duty  and  privilege,  but  for  want  of  that  improve- 
ment had,  while  abounding  in  perplexing  care  and 
labor,  declined  from  first  zeal  and  love.  I  was  con- 
founded, humbled  myself,  implored  mercy,  and  renewed 
my  covenant  to  strive  and  devote  myself  unreservedly 
to  the  Lord. — Bishop  McKkndree. 

The  preaching  that  kills  may   be,  and 
often  is,  orthodox — dogmatically,  inviolably 
orthodox.    We  love  orthodoxy.    It  is  good. 
20 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

It  is  the  best.  It  is  the  clean,  clear-cut 
teaching  of  God's  Word,  the  trophies  won 
by  truth  in  its  conflict  with  error,  the  levees 
which  faith  has  raised  against  the  desola- 
ting floods  of  honest  or  reckless  misbelief 
or  unbelief;  but  orthodoxy,  clear  and  hard 
as  crystal,  suspicious  and  militant,  may  be 
but  the  letter  well-shaped,  well-named,  and 
well-learned,  the  letter  which  kills.  Noth- 
ing is  so  dead  as  a  dead  orthodoxy,  too 
dead  to  speculate,  too  dead  to  think,  to 
study,  or  to  pray. 

The  preaching  that  kills  may  have  in- 
sight and  grasp  of  principles,  may  be  schol- 
arly and  critical  in  taste,  may  have  every 
minutiae  of  the  derivation  and  grammar  of 
the  letter,  may  be  able  to  trim  the  letter 
into  its  perfect  pattern,  and  illume  it  as 
Plato  and  Cicero  may  be  illumined,  may 
study  it  as  a  lawyer  studies  his  text-books 
to  form  his  brief  or  to  defend  his  case,  and 
yet  be  like  a  frost,  a  killing  frost.  Letter- 
preaching  may  be  eloquent,  enameled  with 
poetry  and  rhetoric,  sprinkled  with  prayer, 
spiced  with  sensation,  illumined  by  genius, 

21 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

and  yet  these  be  but  the  massive  or  chaste, 
costly  mountings,  the  rare  and  beautiful 
flowers  which  coffin  the  corpse.  The 
preaching  which  kills  may  be  without  schol- 
arship, unmarked  by  any  freshness  of 
thought  or  feeling,  clothed  in  tasteless  gen- 
eralities or  vapid  specialties,  with  style  ir- 
regular, slovenly,  savoring  neither  of  closet 
nor  of  study,  graced  neither  by  thought,  ex- 
pression, or  prayer.  Under  such  preaching 
how  wide  and  utter  the  desolation !  how 
profound  the  spiritual  death ! 

This  letter-preaching  deals  with  the  sur- 
face and  shadow  of  things,  and  not  the 
things  themselves.  It  does  not  penetrate 
the  inner  part.  It  has  no  deep  insight  into, 
no  strong  grasp  of,  the  hidden  life  of  God's 
Word.  It  is  true  to  the  outside,  but  the  out- 
side is  the  hull  which  must  be  broken  and 
penetrated  for  the  kernel.  The  letter  may 
be  dressed  so  as  to  attract  and  be  fashion- 
able, but  the  attraction  is  not  toward  God 
nor  is  the  fashion  for  heaven.  The  failure 
is  in  the  preacher.  God  has  not  made  him. 
He  has  never  been  in  the  hands  of  God  likt 

22 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

clay  in  the  hands  of  the  potter.  He  has 
been  busy  about  the  sermon,  its  thought 
and  finish,  its  drawing  and  impressive 
forces;  but  the  deep  things  of  God  have 
never  been  sought,  studied,  fathomed,  ex- 
perienced by  him.  He  has  never  stood 
before  ''the  throne  high  and  Hfted  up," 
never  heard  the  seraphim  song,  never  seen 
the  vision  nor  felt  the  rush  of  that  awful 
holiness,  and  cried  out  in  utter  abandon  and 
despair  under  the  sense  of  weakness  and 
guilt,  and  had  his  life  renewed,  his  heart 
touched,  purged,  inflamed  by  the  live  coal 
from  God's  altar.  His  ministry  may  draw 
people  to  him,  to  the  Church,  to  the  form 
and  ceremony;  but  no  true  drawings  to 
God,  no  sweet,  holy,  divine  communion  in- 
duced. The  Church  has  been  frescoed  but 
not  edified,  pleased  but  not  sanctified.  Life 
is  suppressed;  a  chill  is  on  the  summer 
air ;  the  soil  is  baked.  The  city  of  our  God 
becomes  the  city  of  the  dead;  the  Church 
a  graveyard,  not  an  embattled  army. 
Praise  and  prayer  are  stifled;  worship  is 
dead.  The  preacher  and  the  preaching  have 
23 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

helped  sin,  not  holiness ;  peopled  hell,  not 
heaven. 

Preaching  which  kills  is  prayerless 
preaching.  Without  prayer  the  preacher 
creates  death,  and  not  life.  The  preacher 
who  is  feeble  in  prayer  is  feeble  in  life- 
giving  forces.  The  preacher  who  has  re- 
tired prayer  as  a  conspicuous  and  largely 
prevailing  element  in  his  own  character 
has  shorn  his  preaching  of  its  distinctive 
life-giving  power.  Professional  praying 
there  is  and  will  be,  but  professional 
praying  helps  the  preaching  to  its  deadly 
work.  Professional  praying  chills  and 
kills  both  preaching  and  praying.  Much 
of  the  lax  devotion  and  lazy,  irreverent 
attitudes  in  congregational  praying  are 
attributable  to  professional  praying  in  the 
pulpit.  Long,  discursive,  dry,  and  inane 
are  the  prayers  in  many  pulpits.  With- 
out unction  or  heart,  they  fall  like  a  kill- 
ing frost  on  all  the  graces  of  worship. 
Death-dealing  prayers  they  are.  Every 
vestige  of  devotion  has  perished  under 
their  breath.  The  deader  they  are  the 
longer  they  grow.  A  plea  for  short 
U 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

praying,  live  praying,  real  heart  praying, 
praying  by  the  Holy  Spirit — direct,  specific, 
ardent,  simple,  unctuous  in  the  pulpit — is 
in  order.  A  school  to  teach  preachers  how 
to  pray,  as  God  counts  praying,  would  be 
more  beneficial  to  true  piety,  true  worship, 
and  true  preaching  than  all  theological 
schools. 

Stop!  Pause!  Consider!  Where  are 
we?  What  are  we  doing?  Preaching  to 
kill?  Praying  to  kill?  Praying  to  God! 
the  great  God,  the  Maker  of  all  worlds,  the 
Judge  of  all  men!  What  reverence!  what 
simplicity!  what  sincerity!  what  truth  in 
the  inward  parts  is  demanded!  How  real 
we  must  be !  How  hearty !  Prayer  to  God 
the  noblest  exercise,  the  loftiest  effort  of 
man,  the  most  real  thing!  Shall  we  not 
discard  forever  accursed  preaching  that 
kills  and  prayer  that  kills,  and  do  the  real 
thing,  the  mightiest  thing — ^prayerful  pray- 
ing, life-creating  preaching,  bring  the 
mightiest  force  to  bear  on  heaven  and  earth 
and  draw  on  God^s  exhaustless  and  open 
treasure  for  the  need  and  beggary  of  man  ? 
25 


IV, 


Let  us  often  look  at  Brainerd  in  the  ivoods  of 
America  pouring  out  his  very  soul  before  God  for  the 
perishing-  heathen  Tvithout  vjhose  salvation  nothing 
could  make  him  happy.  Prayer — secret^  fervent^  be- 
lieving  prayer — lies  at  the  root  of  all  personal  godli- 
ness. A  competent  knoivledge  of  the  language  -where 
a  missionary  lives,  a  mild  and  winning  temper,  a  heart 
given  up  to  God  in  closet  religion — these,  these  are  the 
attainments  which,  more  than  all  knowledge,  or  all 
other  gifts,  will  fit  us  to  become  the  instruments  of  God 
in  the  great  work  of  human  redemption. 

— Carey's  Brotherhood,  Skrampore. 

There  are  two  extreme  tendencies  in  the 
ministry.  The  one  is  to  shut  itself  out  from 
intercourse  with  the  people.  The  monk, 
the  hermit  were  illustrations  of  this;  they 
shut  themselves  out  from  men  to  be  more 
with  God.  They  failed,  of  course.  Our 
being  with  God  is  of  use  only  as  we  ex- 
pend its  priceless  benefits  on  men.  This 
age,  neither  with  preacher  nor  with  people, 
is  much  intent  on  God.  Our  hankering  is 
26 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

not  that  way.  We  shut  ourselves  to  our 
study,  we  become  students,  bookworms,  Bi- 
ble worms,  sermon  makers,  noted  for  liter- 
ature, thought,  and  sermons ;  but  the  people 
and  God,  where  are  they?  Out  of  heart, 
out  of  mind.  Preachers  who  are  great 
thinkers,  great  students  must  be  the  great- 
est of  prayers,  or  else  they  will  be  the  great- 
est of  backsliders,  heartless  professionals, 
rationalistic,  less  than  the  least  of  preach- 
ers in  God's  estimate. 

The  other  tendency  is  to  thoroughly  pop- 
ularize the  ministry.  He  is  no  longer 
God's  man,  but  a  man  of  affairs,  of  the 
people.  He  prays  not,  because  his  mission 
is  to  the  people.  H  he  can  move  the  peo- 
ple, create  an  interest,  a  sensation  in  favor 
of  religion,  an  interest  in  Church  work — 
he  is  satisfied.  His  personal  relation  to 
God  is  no  factor  in  his  work.  Prayer  has 
little  or  no  place  in  his  plans.  The  disaster 
and  ruin  of  such  a  ministry  cannot  be  com- 
puted by  earthly  arithrrtetic.  What  the 
preacher  is  in  prayer  to  God,  for  himself, 
for  his  people,  so  is  his  power  for  real  good 
27 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

to  men,  so  is  his  true  fruitfulness,  his  true 
fidelity  to  God,  to  man,  for  time,  for  eter- 
nity. 

It  is  impossible  for  the  preacher  to  keep 
his  spirit  in  harmony  with  the  divine  nature 
of  his  high  calling  without  much  prayer. 
That  the  preacher  by  dint  of  duty  and 
laborious  fidelity  to  the  work  and  routine  of 
the  ministry  can  keep  himself  in  trim  and 
fitness  is  a  serious  mistake.  Even  sermon- 
making,  incessant  and  taxing  as  an  art,  as 
a  duty,  as  a  work,  or  as  a  pleasure,  will 
engross  and  harden,  will  estrange  the  heart, 
by  neglect  of  prayer,  from  God.  The  sci- 
entist loses  God  in  nature.  The  preacher 
may  lose  God  in  his  sermon. 

Prayer  freshens  the  heart  of  the  preactt- 
er,  keeps  it  in  tune  with  God  and  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  people,  Hfts  his  ministry  out 
of  the  chilly  air  of  a  profession,  fructifies 
routine  and  moves  every  wheel  with  the 
facility  and  power  of  a  divine  unction. 

Mr.  Spurgeon  says:  *'Of  course  the 
preacher  is  above  all  others  distinguished 
as  a  man  of  prayer.  He  prays  as  an  ordi- 
28 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

nary  Christian,  else  he  were  a  hypcx:rite. 
He  prays  more  than  ordinary  Christians, 
else  he  were  disqualified  for  the  office  he 
has  undertaken.  If  you  as  ministers  are 
not  very  prayerful,  you  are  to  be  pitied.  If 
you  become  lax  in  sacred  devotion,  not  only 
will  you  need  to  be  pitied  but  your  peo- 
ple also,  and  the  day  cometh  in  which  you 
shall  be  ashamed  and  confounded.  All  our 
libraries  and  studies  are  mere  emptiness 
compared  with  our  closets.  Our  seasons 
of  fasting  and  prayer  at  the  Tabernacle 
have  been  high  days  indeed;  never  ha* 
heaven's  gate  stood  wider;  never  have  our 
hearts  been  nearer  the  central  Glory." 

The  praying  which  makes  a  prayerful 
ministry  is  not  a  little  praying  put  in  as  we 
put  flavor  to  give  it  a  pleasant  smack,  but 
the  praying  must  be  in  the  body,  and  form 
the  blood  and  bones.  Prayer  is  no  petty 
duty,  put  into  a  corner;  no  piecemeal  per- 
formance made  out  of  the  fragments  of 
time  which  have  been  snatched  from  busi- 
ness and  other  engagements  of  life;  but 
it  means  that  the  best  of  our  time,  the 
29 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

heart  of  our  time  and  strength  must  be 
given.  It  does  not  mean  the  closet  ab- 
sorbed in  the  study  or  swallowed  up  in  the 
activities  of  ministerial  duties ;  but  it  means 
the  closet  first,  the  study  and  activities  sec- 
ond, both  study  and  activities  freshened 
and  made  efficient  by  the  closet.  Prayer 
that  affects  one's  ministry  must  give  tone 
to  one's  life.  The  praying  which  gives  col- 
or and  bent  to  character  is  no  pleasant,  hur- 
ried pastime.  It  must  enter  as  strongly 
into  the  heart  and  life  as  Christ's  ''strong 
crying  and  tears"  did;  must  draw  out  the 
soul  into  an  agony  of  desire  as  Paul's  did; 
must  be  an  inwrought  fire  and  force  like 
the  "effectual,  fervent  prayer"  of  James; 
must  be  of  that  quality  which,  when  put  into 
the  golden  censer  and  incensed  before  God, 
works  mighty  spiritual  throes  and  revolu- 
tions. 

Prayer  is  not  a  little  habit  pinned  on  to 
us  while  we  were  tied  to  our  mother's  apron 
strings;  neither  is  it  a  little  decent  quarter 
of  a  minute's  grace  said  over  an  hour's 
dinner,  but  it  is  a  most  serious  work  of 
30 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

our  most  serious  years.  It  engages  more 
of  time  and  appetite  than  our  longest  din- 
ings  or  richest  feasts.  The  prayer  that 
makes  much  of  our  preaching  must  be 
made  much  of.  The  character  of  our  pray- 
ing will  determine  the  character  of  our 
preaching.  Light  praying  will  make  light 
preaching.  Prayer  makes  preaching 
strong,  gives  it  unction,  and  makes  it  stick. 
In  every  ministry  weighty  for  good,  prayer 
has  always  been  a  serious  business. 

The  preacher  must  be  preeminently  a 
man  of  prayer.  His  heart  must  graduate 
in  the  school  of  prayer.  In  the  school  of 
prayer  only  can  the  heart  learn  to  preach. 
Xo  learning  can  make  up  for  the  failure  to 
pray.  No  earnestness,  no  diligence,  no 
study,  no  gifts  will  supply  its  lack. 

Talking  to  men  for  God  is  a  great  thing, 
but  talking  to  God  for  men  is  greater  still. 
He  will  never  talk  well  and  with  real  suc- 
cess to  men  for  God  who  has  not  learned 
well  how  to  talk  to  God  for  men.  More 
than  this,  prayerless  words  in  the  pulpit 
and  out  of  it  are  deadening  words. 
31 


V. 

JTou  knotv  the  value  of  prayer:  it  is  precious  beyond 
all  price.     Never ^  ttever  neglect  it. 

— Sir  Thomas  Buxton. 

Prayer  is  the  first  things  the  second  things  the  third 
thing  necessary  to  a  minister,  Pray^  then^  my  dear 
brother;  pray^  pray,  pray. — Edward  Payson. 

Prayer,  in  the  preacher's  life,  in  the 
preacher's  study,  in  the  preacher's  pulpit, 
must  be  a  conspicuous  and  an  all-impreg- 
nating force  and  an  all-coloring  ingredient. 
It  must  play  no  secondary  part,  be  no  mere 
coating.  To  him  it  is  given  to  be  with  his 
Lord  "all  night  in  prayer."  The  preacher, 
to  train  himself  in  self-denying  prayer,  is 
charged  to  look  to  his  Master,  who,  "ris- 
ing up  a  great  while  before  day,  went  out, 
and  departed  into  a  solitary  place,  and  there 
prayed."  The  preacher's  study  ought  to  be 
a  closet,  a  Bethel,  an  altar,  a  vision,  and  a 
ladder,  that  every  thought  might  ascend 
heavenward  ere  it  went  manward ;  that  ev- 
ery part  of  the  sermon  might  be  scented  by 
the  air  of  heaven  and  made  serious,  because 
God  was  in  the  study. 
32 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

As  the  engine  never  moves  until  the  fire 
is  kindled,  so  preaching,  with  all  its  ma- 
chinery, perfection,  and  polish,  is  at  a  dead 
standstill,  as  far  as  spiritual  results  are 
concerned,  till  prayer  has  kindled  and  cre- 
ated the  steam.  The  texture,  fineness,  and 
strength  of  the  sermon  is  as  so  much  rub- 
bish unless  the  mighty  impulse  of  prayer 
is  in  it,  through  it,  and  behind  it.  The 
preacher  must,  by  prayer,  put  God  in  the 
sermon.  The  preacher  must,  by  prayer, 
move  God  toward  the  people  before  he  can 
move  the  people  to  God  by  his  words.  The 
preacher  must  have  had  audience  and  ready 
access  to  God  before  he  can  have  access  to 
the  people.  An  open  way  to  God  for  the 
preacher  is  the  surest  pledge  of  an  open 
way  to  the  people. 

It  is  necessary  to  iterate  and  reiterate  that 
prayer,  as  a  mere  habit,  as  a  performance 
gone  through  by  routine  or  in  a  profession- 
al way,  is  a  dead  and  rotten  thing.  Such 
praying  has  no  connection  with  the  praying 
for  which  we  plead.  We  are  stressing  true 
3  33 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

praying,  which  engages  and  sets  on  fire  ev- 
ery high  element  of  the  preacher's  being — 
prayer  which  is  born  of  vital  oneness  with 
Christ  and  the  fullness  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
which  springs  from  the  deep,  overflowing 
fountains  of  tender  compassion,  deathless 
solicitude  for  man's  eternal  good;  a  con- 
suming zeal  for  the  glory  of  God ;  a  thor- 
ough conviction  of  the  preacher's  difficult 
and  delicate  work  and  of  the  imperative 
need  of  God's  mightiest  help.  Praying 
grounded  on  these  solemn  and  profound 
convictions  is  the  only  true  praying. 
Preaching  backed  by  such  praying  is  the 
only  preaching  which  sows  the  seeds  of 
eternal  life  in  human  hearts  and  builds  men 
up  for  heaven. 

It  is  true  that  there  may  be  popular 
preaching,  pleasant  preaching,  taking 
preaching,  preaching  of  much  intellectual, 
literary,  and  brainy  force,  with  its  measure 
and  form  of  good,  with  little  or  no  praying ; 
but  the  preaching  which  secures  God's  end 
in  preaching  must  be  born  of  prayer  from 
text  to  exordium,  delivered  with  the  energy 
34 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

and  spirit  of  prayer,  followed  and  made  to 
germinate,  and  kept  in  vital  force  in  the 
hearts  of  the  hearers  by  the  preacher's 
prayers,  long  after  the  occasion  has  past. 

We  may  excuse  the  spiritual  poverty  of 
our  preaching  in  many  ways,  but  the  true 
secret  will  be  found  in  the  lack  of  urgent 
prayer  for  God's  presence  in  the  power  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  There  are  preachers  in- 
numerable who  can  deliver  masterful  ser- 
mons after  their  order;  but  the  effects  are 
short-lived  and  do  not  enter  as  a  factor  at 
all  into  the  regions  of  the  spirit  where  the 
fearful  war  between  God  and  Satan,  heav- 
en and  hell,  is  being  waged  because  they 
are  not  made  powerfully  militant  and  spir- 
itually victorious  by  prayer. 

The  preachers  who  gain  mighty  results 
for  God  are  the  men  who  have  prevailed 
in  their  pleadings  with  God  ere  venturing 
to  plead  with  men.  The  preachers  who  are 
the  mightiest  in  their  closets  with  God  are 
the  mightiest  in  their  pulpits  with  men. 

Preachers  are  human  folks,  and  are  ex- 
posed to  and  often  caught  by  the  strong 
35 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

driftings  of  human  currents.  Praying  is 
spiritual  work ;  and  human  nature  does  not 
like  taxing,  spiritual  work.  Human  nature 
wants  to  sail  to  heaven  under  a  favoring 
breeze,  a  full,  smooth  sea.  Prayer  is  hum- 
bling work.  It  abases  intellect  and  pride, 
crucifies  vainglory,  and  signs  our  spiritual 
bankruptcy,  and  all  these  are  hard  for  flesh 
and  blood  to  bear.  It  is  easier  not  to  pray 
than  to  bear  them.  So  we  come  to  one  of 
the  crying  evils  of  these  times,  maybe  of  all 
times — little  or  no  praying.  Of  these  two 
evils,  perhaps  little  praying  is  worse  than 
no  praying.  Little  praying  is  a  kind  of 
make-believe,  a  salvo  for  the  conscience,  a 
farce  and  a  delusion. 

The  little  estimate  we  put  on  prayer  is 
evident  from  the  little  time  we  give  to  it. 
The  time  given  to  prayer  by  the  average 
preacher  scarcely  counts  in  the  sum  of  the 
daily  aggregate.  Not  infrequently  the 
preacher's  only  praying  is  by  his  bedside  in 
his  nightdress,  ready  for  bed  and  soon  in 
it,  with,  perchance,  the  addition  of  a  few 
hasty  snatches  of  prayer  ere  he  is  dressed 

36 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

in  the  morning.  How  feeble,  vain,  and  lit- 
tle is  such  praying  compared  with  the  time 
and  energy  devoted  to  praying  by  holy  men 
in  and  out  of  the  Bible !  How  poor  and 
mean  our  petty,  childish  praying  is  beside 
the  habits  of  the  true  men  of  God  in  all 
ages !  To  men  who  think  praying  their 
main  business  and  devote  time  to  it  ac- 
cording to  this  high  estimate  of  its  im- 
portance does  God  commit  the  keys  of  his 
kingdom,  and  by  them  does  he  work  his 
spiritual  wonders  in  this  world.  Great 
praying  is  the  sign  and  seal  of  God's  great 
leaders  and  the  earnest  of  the  conquering 
forces  with  which  God  will  crown  their  la- 
bors. 

The  preacher  is  commissioned  to  pray  as 
well  as  to  preach.  His  mission  is  incom- 
plete if  he  does  not  do  both  well.  The 
preacher  may  speak  with  all  the  eloquence 
of  men  and  of  angels;  but  unless  he  can 
pray  with  a  faith  which  draws  all  heaven 
to  his  aid,  his  preaching  will  be  "as  sound- 
ing brass  or  a  tinkling  cymbal"  for  perma- 
nent God-honoring,  soul-saving  uses. 
37 


VI. 

The  pritKipdl  cause  of  my  leanness  mnd  unfrtMful- 
n9S3  is  owing  to  an  unaccountable  back-wardaess  to 
pray.  I  can  turit*  or  read  or  converse  or  hear  imih  a 
ready  heart;  but  prayer  is  more  spiritual  and  rnvMxrd 
thmn  mny  of  these ^  and  the  more  spiritual  any  duty  is 
the  more  my  carnal  heart  is  apt  to  start  from  it. 
Prayer  and  Patience  and  faith  are  never  disappointed. 
I  have  long  since  learned  that  if  ever  I  ivas  to  be  a 
minister  faith  and  prayer  must  tnake  me  one,  WJien 
I  can  find  my  heart  in  frame  and  liberty  for  prayer^ 
everything  else  is  comparatively  easy, 

' — Richard  Nkwton. 

It  may  be  put  down  as  a  spiritual  ax- 
iom that  in  every  truly  successful  ministry 
prayer  is  an  evident  and  controlling  force 
— evident  and  controlling  in  the  life  of  the 
preacher,  evident  and  controlling  in  the 
deep  spirituality  of  his  work.  A  ministry 
may  be  a  very  thoughtful  ministry  without 
prayer;  the  preacher  may  secure  fame  and 
popularity  without  prayer;  the  whole  ma- 
chinery of  the  preacher's  life  and  work  may 
be  run  without  the  oil  of  prayer  or  with 
scarcely  enough  to  grease  one  cog;  but  no 

38 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

ministry  can  be  a  spiritual  one,  securing 
holiness  in  the  preacher  and  in  his  people, 
without  prayer  being  made  an  evident  and 
controlling  force. 

The  preacher  that  prays  indeed  puts  God 
into  the  work.  God  does  not  come  into  the 
preacher's  work  as  a  matter  of  course  or  on 
general  principles,  but  he  comes  by  prayer 
and  special  urgency.  That  God  will  be 
found  of  us  in  the  day  that  we  seek  him 
with  the  whole  heart  is  as  true  of  the 
preacher  as  of  the  penitent.  A  prayerful 
ministry  is  the  only  ministry  that  brings  the 
preacher  into  sympathy  with  the  people. 
Prayer  as  essentially  unites  to  the  hu- 
man as  it  does  to  the  divine.  \  A  prayerful 
ministry  is  the  only  ministry  qualified  for 
the  high  offices  and  responsibilities  of  the 
preacher.  Colleges,  learning,  books,  the- 
ology, preaching  cannot  make  a  preacher, 
but  praying  does.  The  apostles'  commis- 
sion to  preach  was  a  blank  till  filled  up  by 
the  Pentecost  which  praying  brought.  A 
prayerful  minister  has  passed  beyond  the 
regions  of  the  popular,  beyond  the  man  of 
39 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

mere  affairs,  of  secularities,  of  pulpit  at- 
tractiveness; passed  beyond  the  ecclesiastic- 
al organizer  or  general  into  a  sublimer  and 
mightier  region,  the  region  of  the  spiritual. 
Holiness  is  the  product  of  his  work;  trans- 
figured hearts  and  lives  emblazon  the  real- 
ity of  his  work,  its  trueness  and  substantial 
nature.  God  is  with  him.  His  ministry  is 
not  projected  on  worldly  or  surface  prin- 
ciples. He  is  deeply  stored  with  and  deep- 
ly schooled  in  the  things  of  God.  His  long, 
deep  communings  with  God  about  his  peo- 
ple and  the  agony  of  his  wrestling  spirit 
have  crowned  him  as  a  prince  in  the  things 
of  God.  The  iciness  of  the  mere  profes- 
sional has  long  since  melted  under  the  in- 
tensity of  his  praying. 

The  superficial  results  of  many  a  minis- 
try, the  deadness  of  others,  are  to  be  found 
in  the  lack  of  praying.  No  ministry  can 
succeed  without  much  praying,  and  this 
praying  must  be  fundamental,  ever-abiding, 
ever-increasing.  The  text,  the  sermon, 
should  be  the  result  of  prayer.  The  study 
should  be  bathed  in  prayer,  all  its  duties 
40 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

impregnated  with  prayer,  its  whole  spirit 
the  spirit  of  prayer.  "I  am  sorry  that  I 
have  prayed  so  Httle/*  was  the  deathbed  re- 
gret of  one  of  God's  chosen  ones,  a  sad 
and  remorseful  regret  for  a  preacher.  *'I 
want  a  life  of  greater,  deeper,  truer 
prayer,"  said  the  late  Archbishop  Tait.  So 
may  we  all  say,  and  this  may  we  all  secure. 
God's  true  preachers  have  been  distin- 
guished by  one  great  feature:  they  were 
men  of  prayer.  Differing  often  in  many 
things,  they  have  always  had  a  common 
center.  They  may  have  started  from  dif- 
ferent points,  and  traveled  by  different 
roads,  but  they  converged  to  one  point: 
they  were  one  in  prayer.  God  to  them  was 
the  center  of  attraction,  and  prayer  was  the 
path  that  led  to  God.  These  men  prayed 
not  occasionally,  not  a  little  at  regular  or  at 
odd  times;  but  they  so  prayed  that  their 
prayers  entered  into  and  shaped  their  char- 
acters ;  they  so  prayed  as  to  affect  their  own 
lives  and  the  lives  of  others ;  they  so  prayed 
as  to  make  the  history  of  the  Church  and 
influence  the  current  of  the  times.  They; 
4' 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

spent  much  time  in  prayer,  not  because  they 
marked  the  shadow  on  the  dial  or  the  hands 
on  the  clock,  but  because  it  was  to  them  so 
momentous  and  engaging  a  business  that 
they  could  scarcely  give  over. 

Prayer  was  to  them  what  it  was  to  Paul, 
a  striving  with  earnest  effort  of  soul ;  what 
it  was  to  Jacob,  a  wrestling  and  prevailing; 
what  it  was  to  Christ,  ^'strong  crying  and 
tears/'  They  "prayed  always  with  all 
prayer  and  supplication  in  the  Spirit,  and 
watching  thereunto  with  all  perseverance." 
*The  effectual,  fervent  prayer"  has  been  the 
mightiest  weapon  of  God's  mightiest  sol- 
diers. The  statement  in  regard  to  Elijah — 
that  he  "was  a  man  subject  to  like  passions 
as  we  are,  and  he  prayed  earnestly  that  it 
might  not  rain:  and  it  rained  not  on  the 
earth  by  the  space  of  three  years  and  six 
months.  And  he  prayed  again,  and  the 
heaven  gave  rain,  and  the  earth  brought 
forth  her  fruit" — comprehends  all  prophets 
and  preachers  who  have  moved  their  gen- 
eration for  God,  and  shows  the  instrument 
by  which  they  worked  their  wonders. 
42 


VII. 

The  great  masters  and  teachers  in  Christian  dec* 
trine  have  alvMxys  found  in  grayer  their  highest  sonrce 
of  iUuminaiion.  Not  te  go  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
English  Churchy  it  is  recorded  of  Bishop  Andrewes 
that  be  spent  five  hours  daily  on  his  knees.  The 
greatest  practical  resolves  that  have  enriched  and 
beautified  human  life  in  Christian  times  have  been 
arrived  at  in  prayer. — Canon  Liddok. 

While  many  private  prayers,  in  the  na- 
ture of  things,  must  be  short;  while  public 
prayers,  as  a  rule,  ought  to  be  short  and 
condensed;  while  there  is  ample  room  for 
and  value  put  on  ejaculatory  prayer — ^yet 
in  our  private  communions  with  God  time 
is  a  feature  essential  to  its  value.  Much 
time  spent  with  God  is  the  secret  of  all  suc- 
cessful praying.  Prayer  which  is  felt  as  a 
mighty  force  is  the  mediate  or  immediate 
product  of  much  time  spent  with  God.  Our 
short  prayers  owe  their  point  and  efficiency 
to  the  long  ones  that  have  preceded  them. 
43 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

The  short  prevailing  prayer  cannot  be 
prayed  by  one  who  has  not  prevailed  with 
God  in  a  mightier  struggle  of  long  con- 
tinuance. Jacob's  victory  of  faith  could 
not  have  been  gained  without  that  all-night 
wrestling.  God's  acquaintance  is  not  made 
by  pop  calls.  God  does  not  bestow  his  gifts 
on  the  casual  or  hasty  comers  and  goers. 
Much  with  God  alone  is  the  secret  of  know- 
ing him  and  of  influence  with  him.  He 
yields  to  the  persistency  of  a  faith  that 
knows  him.  He  bestows  his  richest  gifts 
upon  those  who  declare  their  desire  for  and 
appreciation  of  those  gifts  by  the  constancy 
as  well  as  earnestness  of  their  importunity. 
Christ,  who  in  this  as  well  as  other  things 
is  our  Example,  spent  many  whole  nights 
in  prayer.  His  custom  was  to  pray  much. 
He  had  his  habitual  place  to  pray.  Many 
long  seasons  of  praying  make  up  his  his- 
tory and  character.  Paul  prayed  day  and 
night.  It  took  time  from  very  important 
interests  for  Daniel  to  pray  three  times  a 
day.  David's  morning,  noon,  and  night 
praying  were  doubtless  on  many  occasions 
44 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

very  protracted.  While  we  have  no  spe- 
cific account  of  the  time  these  Bible  saints 
spent  in  prayer,  yet  the  indications  are  that 
they  consumed  much  time  in  prayer,  and 
on  some  occasions  long  seasons  of  praying 
was  their  custom. 

We  would  not  have  any  think  that  the 
value  of  their  prayers  is  to  be  measured 
by  the  clock,  but  our  purpose  is  to  im- 
press on  our  minds  the  necessity  of  being 
much  alone  with  God;  and  that  if  this  fea- 
ture has  not  been  produced  by  our  faith, 
then  our  faith  is  of  a  feeble  and  surface 
type. 

The  men  who  have  most  fully  illustrated 
Christ  in  their  character,  and  have  most 
powerfully  affected  the  world  for  him,  have 
been  men  who  spent  so  much  time  with 
God  as  to  make  it  a  notable  feature  of 
their  lives.  Charles  Simeon  devoted  the 
hours  from  four  till  eight  in  the  morning 
to  God.  Mr.  Wesley  spent  two  hours  daily 
in  prayer.  He  began  at  four  in  the  morn- 
ing. Of  him,  one  who  knew  him  well 
wrote:  '*He  thought  prayer  to  be  more  his 
45 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

business  than  anything  else,  and  I  have 
seen  him  come  out  of  his  closet  with  a 
serenity  of  face  next  to  shining.'*  John 
Fletcher  stained  the  walls  of  his  room  by 
the  breath  of  his  prayers.  Sometimes  he 
would  pray  all  night;  always,  frequently, 
and  with  great  earnestness.  His  whole  life 
was  a  life  of  prayer.  "I  would  not  rise 
from  my  seat,"  he  said,  '^without  lifting  my 
heart  to  God."  His  greeting  to  a  friend 
was  always:  "Do  I  meet  you  praying?" 
Luther  said;  "If  I  fail  to  spend  two  hours 
in  prayer  eacYi  morning,  the  devil  gets  the 
victory  through  the  day.  I  have  so  much 
business  I  cannot  get  on  without  spending 
three  hours  daily  in  prayer."  He  had  a 
motto:  "He  that  has  prayed  well  has  stud- 
ied well." 

Archbishop  Leighton  was  so  much  alone 
with  God  that  he  seemed  to  be  in  a  per- 
petual meditation.  "Prayer  and  praise 
were  his  business  and  his  pleasure,"  says 
his  biographer.  Bishop  Ken  was  so  much 
with  God  that  his  soul  was  said  to  be  God- 
enamored.     He  was  with  God  before  the 

46 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

clock  struck  three  every  morning-.  Bishop 
Asbury  said:  "I  propose  to  rise  at  four 
o'clock  as  often  as  I  can  and  spend  two 
hours  in  prayer  and  meditation."  Samuel 
Rutherford,  the  fragrance  of  whose  piety 
is  still  rich,  rose  at  three  in  the  morning  to 
meet  God  in  prayer.  Joseph  Alleine  arose 
at  four  o'clock  for  his  business  of  praying 
till  eight.  If  he  heard  other  tradesmen  ply- 
ing their  business  before  he  was  up,  he 
would  exclaim:  "O  how  this  shames  me! 
Doth  not  my  Master  deserve  more  than 
theirs?"  He  who  has  learned  this  trade 
well  draws  at  will,  on  sight,  and  with  ac- 
ceptance of  heaven's  unfailing  bank. 

One  of  the  holiest  and  among  the  most 
gifted  of  Scotch  preachers  says:  "I  ought 
to  spend  the  best  hours  in  communion  with 
God.  It  is  my  noblest  and  most  fruitful  em- 
ployment, and  is  not  to  be  thrust  into  a  cor- 
ner. The  morning  hours,  from  six  to  eight, 
are  the  most  uninterrupted  and  should  be 
thus  em.ployed.  After  tea  is  my  best  hour, 
and  that  should  be  solemnly  dedicated  to 
Go<l.  I  ought  not  to  give  up  the  good  old 
47 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

habit  of  prayer  before  going  to  bed;  but 
guard  must  be  kept  against  sleep.  When 
I  awake  in  the  night,  I  ought  to  rise  and 
pray.  A  Httle  time  after  breakfast  might 
be  given  to  intercession."  This  was  the 
praying  plan  of  Robert  McCheyne.  The 
memorable  Methodist  band  in  their  praying 
shame  us.  *'From  four  to  five  in  the  morn- 
ing, private  prayer;  from  five  to  six  in  the 
evening,  private  prayer." 

John  Welch,  the  holy  and  wonderful 
Scotch  preacher,  thought  the  day  ill  spent 
if  he  did  not  spend  eight  or  ten  hours  in 
prayer.  He  kept  a  plaid  that  he  might  wrap 
himself  when  he  arose  to  pray  at  night. 
His  wife  would  complain  when  she  found 
him  lying  on  the  ground  weeping.  He 
would  reply:  "O  woman,  I  have  the  souls 
of  three  thousand  to  answer  for,  and  I 
know  not  how  it  is  with  many  of  them !" 

48 


VIII. 

The  act  of  fraying  is  the  very  highest  energy  of 
ivhich  the  human  mind  is  capable;  prayings  that  is, 
with  the  total  concentration  of  the  faculties.  The 
great  mass  of  -worldly  men  and  of  learned  men  are 
absolutely  iyicapable  of  prayer. — Coleridge. 

Bishop  Wilson  says:  "In  H.  Martyn's 
journal  the  spirit  of  prayer,  the  time  he 
devoted  to  the  duty,  and  his  fervor  in  it 
are  the  first  things  which  strike  me." 

Payson  wore  the  hard-wood  boards  into 
grooves  where  his  knees  pressed  so  often 
and  so  long.  His  biographer  says:  "His 
continuing  instant  in  prayer,  be  his  circum- 
stances what  they  might,  is  the  most  no- 
ticeable fact  in  his  history,  and  points  out 
the  duty  of  all  who  would  rival  his  emi- 
nency.  To  his  ardent  and  persevering 
prayers  must  no  doubt  be  ascribed  in  a 
great  measure  his  distinguished  and  almost 
uninterrupted  success." 

The  Marquis  DeRenty,  to  whom  Christ 
4  49 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

was  most  precious,  ordered  his  servant  to 
call  him  from  his  devotions  at  the  end  of 
half  an  hour.  The  servant  at  the  time  saw 
his  face  through  an  aperture.  It  was 
marked  with  such  holiness  that  he  hated  to 
arouse  him.  His  lips  were  moving,  but  he 
was  perfectly  silent.  He  waited  until  three 
half  hours  had  passed;  then  he  called  to 
him,  when  he  arose  from  his  knees,  saying 
that  the  half  hour  was  so  short  when  he 
was  communing  with  Christ. 

Brainerd  said:  "I  love  to  be  alone  in  my 
cottage,  where  I  can  spend  much  time  in 
prayer/' 

William  Bramwell  is  famous  in  Metho- 
dist annals  for  personal  hoHness  and  for 
his  wonderful  success  in  preaching  and  for 
the  marvelous  answers  to  his  prayers.  For 
hours  at  a  time  he  would  pray.  He  almost 
lived  on  his  knees.  He  went  over  his  cir- 
cuits like  a  flame  of  fire.  The  fire  was  kin- 
dled by  the  time  he  spent  in  prayer.  He 
often  spent  as  much  as  four  hours  in  a 
single  season  of  prayer  in  retirement. 

Bishop  Andrewes  spent  the  greatest  part 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

of  five  hours  every  day  in  prayer  and  de- 
votion. 

Sir  Henry  Havelock  always  spent  the 
first  two  hours  of  each  day  alone  with  God. 
If  the  encampment  was  struck  at  6  a.m., 
he  would  rise  at  four. 

Earl  Cairns  rose  daily  at  six  o'clock  to 
secure  an  hour  and  a  half  for  the  study  of 
the  Bible  and  for  prayer,  before  conducting 
family  worship  at  a  quarter  to  eight. 

Dr.  Judson's  success  in  prayer  is  attrib- 
utable to  the  fact  that  he  gave  much  time 
to  prayer.  He  says  on  this  point :  "Arrange 
thy  affairs,  if  possible,  so  that  thou  canst 
leisurely  devote  two  or  three  hours  every 
day  not  merely  to  devotional  exercises  but 
to  the  very  act  of  secret  prayer  and  com- 
munion with  God.  Endeavor  seven  times 
a  day  to  withdraw  from  business  and  com- 
pany and  lift  up  thy  soul  to  God  in  private 
retirement.  Begin  the  day  by  rising  after 
midnight  and  devoting  some  time  amid  the 
silence  and  darkness  of  the  night  to  this  sa- 
cred work.  Let  the  hour  of  opening  dawn 
find  thee  at  the  same  work.  Let  the  hours 
51 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

of  nine,  twelve,  three,  six,  and  nine  at 
night  witness  the  same.  Be  resolute  in  his 
cause.  Make  all  practicable  sacrifices  to 
maintain  it.  Consider  that  thy  time  is 
short,  and  that  business  and  company  must 
not  be  allowed  to  rob  thee  of  thy  God." 
Impossible,  say  we,  fanatical  directions! 
Dr.  Judson  impressed  an  empire  for  Christ 
and  laid  the  foundations  of  God's  kingdom 
with  imperishable  granite  in  the  heart  of 
Burmah.  He  was  successful,  one  of  the 
few  men  who  mightily  impressed  the  world 
for  Christ.  Many  men  of  greater  gifts 
and  genius  and  learning  than  he  have  made 
no  such  impression;  their  religious  work  is 
like  footsteps  in  the  sands,  but  he  has  en- 
graven his  work  on  the  adamant.  The  se- 
cret of  its  profundity  and  endurance  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  he  gave  time  to 
prayer.  He  kept  the  iron  red-hot  with 
prayer,  and  God's  skill  fashioned  it  with 
enduring  power.  No  man  can  do  a  great 
and  enduring  work  for  God  who  is  not  a 
man  of  prayer,  and  no  man  can  be  a  man 
52 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

of  prayer  who  does  not  give  much  time  to 
praying. 

Is  it  true  that  prayer  is  simply  the  com- 
pHance  with  habit^  dull  and  mechanical? 
A  petty  performance  into  which  we  are 
trained  till  tameness,  shortness,  superficial- 
ity are  its  chief  elements?  *'Is  it  true  that 
prayer  is,  as  is  assumed,  little  else  than 
the  half-passive  play  of  sentiment  which 
flows  languidly  on  through  the  minutes  or 
hours  of  easy  reverie?"  Canon  Liddon 
continues :  "Let  those  who  have  really 
prayed  give  the  answer.  They  sometimes 
describe  prayer  with  the  patriarch  Jacob  as 
a  wrestling  together  with  an  Unseen  Pow- 
er which  may  last,  not  unfrequently  in  an 
earnest  life,  late  into  the  night  hours,  or 
even  to  the  break  of  day.  Sometimes  they 
refer  to  common  intercession  with  St.  Paul 
as  a  concerted  struggle.  They  have,  when 
praying,  their  eyes  fixed  on  the  Great  In- 
tercessor in  Gethsemane,  upon  the  drops  of 
blood  which  fall  to  the  ground  in  that 
agony  of  resignation  and  sacrifice.  Impor- 
tunity is  of  the  essence  of  successful  prayer. 
53 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

Importunity  means  not  dreaminess  but 
sustained  work.  It  is  through  prayer  espe- 
cially that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  suifereth 
violence  and  the  violent  take  it  by  force. 
It  was  a  saying  of  the  late  Bishop  Hamil- 
ton that  **No  man  is  likely  to  do  much  good 
in  prayer  who  does  not  begin  by  looking 
upon  it  in  the  light  of  a  work  to  be  pre- 
pared for  and  persevered  in  with  all  the 
earnestness  which  we  bring  to  bear  upon 
subjects  which  are  in  our  opinion  at  once 
most  interesting  and  most  necessary." 
54 


IX. 

/  ought  to  pray  before  seeing  any  one.  Often 
ivhen  I  sleep  long^  or  meet  ruith  others  early,  it  is 
eleven  or  t-cvelve  o'' clock  before  I  begin  secret  prayer. 
This  is  a  -wretched  system.  It  is  unscriptnral.  Christ 
arose  before  day  and  -went  into  a  solitary  place.  David 
says:  ^^Early  ivill  I  seek  thee ;''''  '-'■Thou  shalt  early  hear 
my  voice.^*  Family  prayer  loses  much  of  its  power 
and  stueetness,  and  I  can  do  no  good  to  those  -who  come 
to  seek  from  me.  The  conscience  feels  guilty,  the  soul 
unfed,  the  lamp  not  tritnmed.  Tlien  when  in  secret 
prayer  the  soul  is  often  out  of  tune.  I  feel  it  is  far 
better  to  begin  -with  God — to  see  his  face  first,  to  get 
my  soul  ?iear  him  before  it  is  near  another. 

— Robert  Murray  McCheyne. 

The  men  who  have  done  the  most  for 
God  in  this  world  have  been  early  on  their 
knees.  He  who  fritters  away  the  early 
morning^,  its  opportunity  and  freshness,  in 
other  pursuits  than  seeking  God  will  make 
poor  headway  seeking  him  the  rest  of  the 
day.  If  God  is  not  first  in  our  thoughts 
and  efforts  in  the  morning,  he  will  be  in  the 
last  place  the  remainder  of  the  day. 

Behind  this  early  rising  and  early  pray- 
55 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

ing  is  the  ardent  desire  which  presses  us 
into  this  pursuit  after  God.  Morning  Hst- 
lessness  is  the  index  to  a  listless  heart.  The 
heart  which  is  behindhand  in  seeking  God 
in  the  morning  has  lost  its  relish  for  God. 
David's  heart  was  ardent  after  God.  He 
hungered  and  thirsted  after  God,  and  so  he 
sought  God  early,  before  daylight.  The 
bed  and  sleep  could  not  chain  his  soul  in  its 
eagerness  after  God.  Christ  longed  for 
communion  with  God ;  and  so,  rising  a  great 
while  before  day,  he  would  go  out  into  the 
mountain  to  pray.  The  disciples,  when  ful- 
ly awake  and  ashamed  of  their  indulgence, 
would  know  where  to  find  him.  We  might 
go  through  the  list  of  men  who  have  might- 
ily impressed  the  world  for  God,  and  we 
would  find  them  early  after  God. 

A  desire  for  God  which  cannot  break  the 
chains  of  sleep  is  a  weak  thing  and  will  do 
but  little  good  for  God  after  it  has  in- 
dulged itself  fully.  The  desire  for  God 
that  keeps  so  far  behind  the  devil  and  the 
world  at  the  beginning  of  the  day  will  nev- 
er catch  up. 

56 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

It  is  not  simply  the  getting  up  that  puts 
men  to  the  front  and  makes  them  captain 
generals  in  God's  hosts,  but  it  is  the  ar- 
dent desire  which  stirs  and  breaks  all  self- 
indulgent  chains.  But  the  getting  up  gives 
vent,  increase,  and  strength  to  the  desire. 
If  they  had  lain  in  bed  and  indulged  them- 
selves, the  desire  would  have  been  quenched. 
The  desire  aroused  them  and  put  them  on 
the  stretch  for  God,  and  this  heeding  and 
acting  on  the  call  gave  their  faith  its  grasp 
on  God  and  gave  to  their  hearts  the  sweet- 
est and  fullest  revelation  of  God,  and  this 
strength  of  faith  and  fullness  of  revelation 
made  them  saints  by  eminence,  and  the  halo 
of  their  sainthood  has  come  down  to  us, 
and  we  have  entered  on  the  enjoyment  of 
their  conquests.  But  we  take  our  fill  In 
enjoyment,  and  not  in  productions.  We 
build  their  tombs  and  write  their  epitaphs, 
but  are  careful  not  to  follow  their  examples. 

We  need  a  generation  of  preachers  who 
seek  God  and  seek  him  early,  who  give  the 
freshness  and  dew  of  effort  to  God,  and  se- 
cure in  return  the  freshness  and  fullness  of 
57 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

his  power  that  he  may  be  as  the  dew  to 
them,  full  of  gladness  and  strength,  through 
all  the  heat  and  labor  of  the  day.  Our  lazi- 
ness after  God  is  our  crying  sin.  The  chil- 
dren of  this  world  are  far  wiser  than  we. 
They  are  at  it  early  and  late.  We  do  not 
seek  God  with  ardor  and  diligence.  No 
man  gets  God  who  does  not  follow  hard 
after  him,  and  no  soul  follows  hard  after 
God  who  is  not  after  him  in  early  morn. 

58 


There  is  a  manifest  want  of  spiritual  influence  on 
the  ministry  of  the  present  day.  I  feel  it  in  my  own 
case  and  I  see  it  in  that  of  others,  I  am  afraid  there 
is  too  much  of  a  loiv^  managing ^  contriving^  maneuver- 
iiig  temper  of  mind  among  us.  We  are  laying  our- 
selves out  more  than  is  expedient  to  m^et  one  man's 
taste  and  another  man^s  prejudices.  The  ministry  is 
a  grand  and  holy  affair ^  and  it  should  find  in  us  a  sim- 
ple habit  of  spirit  and  a  holy  but  humble  indifference 
to  all  consequences.  The  leading  defect  in  Christian 
ministers  is  want  of  a  devotional  habit. 

— Richard  Cecil. 

Never  was  there  greater  need  for  saintly 
men  and  women;  more  imperative  still  is 
the  call  for  saintly,  God-devoted  preach- 
ers. The  world  moves  with  gigantic 
strides.  Satan  has  his  hold  and  rule  on 
the  world,  and  labors  to  make  all  its  move- 
ments subserve  his  ends.  Religion  must 
do  its  best  work,  present  its  most  attractive 
and  perfect  models.  By  every  means,  mod- 
ern sainthood. must  be  inspired  by  the  loft- 
59 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

lest  ideals  and  by  the  largest  possibilities 
through  the  Spirit.  Paul  lived  on  his 
knees,  that  the  Ephesian  Church  might 
measure  the  heights,  breadths,  and  depths 
of  an  unmeasurable  saintliness,  and  "be 
filled  with  all  the  fullness  of  God."  Epa- 
phras  laid  himself  out  with  the  exhaustive 
toil  and  strenuous  conflict  of  fervent  prayer, 
that  the  Colossian  Church  might  "stand 
perfect  and  complete  in  all  the  will  of  God." 
Everywhere,  everything  in  apostolic  times 
was  on  the  stretch  that  the  people  of  God 
might  each  and  "all  come  in  the  unity  of 
the  faith,  and  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son 
of  God,  unto  a  perfect  man,  unto  the  meas- 
ure of  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of 
Christ."  No  premium  was  given  to  dwarfs : 
no  encouragement  to  an  old  babyhood. 
The  babies  were  to  grow;  the  old,  instead 
of  feebleness  and  infirmities,  were  to  bear 
fruit  in  old  age,  and  be  fat  and  flourishing. 
The  divinest  thing  in  religion  is  holy  men 
and  holy  women. 

No  amount  of  money,  genius,  or  culture 
can  move  things   for  God.     Holiness   en- 
60 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

crgizing  the  soul,  the  whole  man  aflame 
with  love,  with  desire  for  more  faith,  more 
prayer,  more  zeal,  more  consecration — this 
is  the  secret  of  power.  These  we  need  and 
must  have,  and  men  must  be  the  incarna- 
tion of  this  God-inflamed  devotedness. 
God's  advance  has  been  stayed,  his  cause 
crippled,  his  name  dishonored  for  their 
lack.  Genius  (though  the  loftiest  and  most 
gifted),  education  (though  the  most 
learned  and  refined),  position,  dignity, 
place,  honored  names,  high  ecclesiastics 
cannot  move  this  chariot  of  our  God.  It  is 
a  fiery  one,  and  fiery  forces  only  can  move 
it.  The  genius  of  a  Milton  fails.  The  im- 
perial strength  of  a  Leo  fails.  Brainerd's 
spirit  can  move  it.  Brainerd's  spirit  was 
on  fire  for  God,  on  fire  for  souls.  Nothing 
earthly,  worldly,  selfish  came  in  to  abate 
in  the  least  the  intensity  of  this  all-impell- 
ing and  all-consuming  force  and  flame. 

Prayer  is  the  creator  as  well  as  the  chan- 
nel of  devotion.     The  spirit  of  devotion  is 
the  spirit  of  prayer.     Prayer  and  devotion 
are  united  as  soul  and  body  are  united,  as 
\  6i 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

life  and  the  heart  arc  united.  There  is  no 
real  prayer  without  devotion,  no  devotion 
without  prayer.  The  preacher  must  be  sur- 
rendered to  God  in  the  hoHest  devotion. 
He  is  not  a  professional  man,  his  ministry 
is  not  a  profession ;  it  is  a  divine  institution, 
a  divine  devotion.  He  is  devoted  to  God. 
His  aim,  aspirations,  ambition  are  for  God 
and  to  God,  and  to  such  prayer  is  as  essen- 
tial as  food  is  to  life. 

The  preacher,  above  everything  else, 
must  be  devoted  to  God.  The  preacher's 
relations  to  God  are  the  insignia  and  cre- 
dentials of  his  ministry.  These  must  be 
clear,  conclusive,  unmistakable.  No  com- 
mon, surface  type  of  piety  must  be  his.  If 
he  does  not  excel  in  grace,  he  does  not  ex- 
cel at  all.  If  he  does  not  preach  by  life, 
character,  conduct,  he  does  not  preach  at 
all.  If  his  piety  be  light,  his  preaching  may 
be  as  soft  and  as  sweet  as  music,  as  gifted 
as  Apollo,  yet  its  weight  will  be  a  feather's 
weight,  visionary,  fleeting  ,as  the  morning 
cloud  or  the  early  dew.  Devotion  to  God 
— there  is  no  substitute  for  this  in  the 
62 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

preacher's  character  and  conduct.  Devo- 
tion to  a  Church,  to  opinions,  to  an  organi- 
zation, to  orthodoxy — these  are  paltry,  mis- 
leading, and  vain  when  they  become  the 
source  of  inspiration,  the  animus  of  a  call. 
God  must  be  the  mainspring  of  the  preach- 
er's effort,  the  fountain  and  crown  of  all 
his  toil.  The  name  and  honor  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  advance  of  his  cause,  must  be 
all  in  all.  The  preacher  must  have  no  in- 
spiration but  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  no 
ambition  but  to  have  him  glorified,  no  toil 
but  for  him.  Then  prayer  will  be  a  source 
of  his  illuminations,  the  means  of  perpet- 
ual advance,  the  gauge  of  his  success.  The 
perpetual  aim,  the  only  ambition,  the 
preacher  can  cherish  is  to  have  God  with 
him. 

Never  did  the  cause  of  God  need  per- 
fect illustrations  of  the  possibilities  of 
prayer  more  than  in  this  age.  No  age,  no 
person,  will  be  ensamples  of  the  gospel  pow- 
er except  the  ages  or  persons  of  deep  and 
earnest  prayer.  A  prayerless  age  will  have 
but  scant  models  of  divine  power.    Prayer- 

63 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

less  hearts  will  never  rise  to  these  Alpine 
heights.  The  age  may  be  a  better  age  than 
the  past,  but  there  is  an  infinite  distance 
between  the  betterment  of  an  age  by  the 
force  of  an  advancing  civilization  and  its 
betterment  by  the  increase  of  holiness  and 
Christlikeness  by  the  energy  of  prayer. 
The  Jews  were  much  better  when  Christ 
came  than  in  the  ages  before.  It  was  the 
golden  age  of  their  Pharisaic  religion. 
Their  golden  religious  age  crucified  Christ. 
Never  more  praying,  never  less  praying; 
never  more  sacrifices,  never  less  sacrifice; 
never  less  idolatry,  never  more  idolatry; 
never  more  of  temple  worship,  never  less 
of  God  worship;  never  more  of  lip  serv- 
ice, never  less  of  heart  service  (God  wor- 
shiped by  lips  whose  hearts  and  hands  cru- 
cified God's  Son!)  ;  never  more  of  church- 
goers, never  less  of  saints. 

It  is  prayer-force  which  makes  saints. 
Holy  characters  are  formed  by  the  power 
of  real  praying.  The  more  of  true  saints, 
the  more  of  praying;  the  more  of  praying, 
the  more  of  true  saints. 

64 


XI. 

/  urge  upon  you  communion  with  Christy  a  groov- 
ing- commutiion.  There  are  curtains  to  be  draivn 
aside  in  Christ  that  ive  never  saiv^  and  nevj  foldings 
of  love  in  him.  I  despair  that  I  shall  ever  ivin  to  the 
far  end  of  that  love^  there  are  so  many  plies  in  it. 
Therefore  dig  deepy  and  sweat  and  labor  and  take 
pains  for  him^  and  set  by  as  much  time  in  the  day  for 
him  as  you  can.     He  ivill  be  ivon  in  the  labor, 

— Rutherford. 

God  has  now,  and  has  had,  many  of  these 
devoted,  prayerful  preachers — men  in 
whose  Hves  prayer  has  been  a  mighty,  con- 
trolHng,  conspicuous  force.  The  world  has 
felt  their  power,  God  has  felt  and  honored 
their  power,  God's  cause  has  moved  mighti- 
ly and  swiftly  by  their  prayers,  holiness  has 
shone  out  in  their  characters  with  a  divine 
effulgence. 

God  found  one  of  the  men  he  was  look- 
ing for  in  David  Brainerd,  whose  work  and 
name  have  gone  into  history.  He  was  no 
ordinarv  man,  but  was  capable  of  shining 
5  65 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

in  any  company,  the  peer  of  the  wise  and 
gifted  ones,  eminently  suited  to  fill  the  most 
attractive  pulpits  and  to  labor  among  the 
most  refined  and  the  cultured,  who  were  so 
anxious  to  secure  him  for  their  pastor. 
President  Edwards  bears  testimony  that  he 
was  "a  young  man  of  distingushed  talents, 
had  extraordinary  knowledge  of  men  and 
things,  had  rare  conversational  powers,  ex- 
celled in  his  knowledge  of  theology,  and 
was  truly,  for  one  so  young,  an  extraordi- 
nary divine,  and  especially  in  all  matters 
relating  to  experimental  religion.  I  never 
knew  his  equal  of  his  age  and  standing  for 
clear  and  accurate  notions  of  the  nature  and 
essence  of  true  religion.  His  manner  in 
prayer  was  almost  inimitable,  such  as  I  have 
very  rarely  known  equaled.  His  learning 
was  very  considerable,  and  he  had  extraor- 
dinary gifts  for  the  pulpit." 

No  sublimer  story  has  been  recorded  in 
earthly  annals  than  that  of  David  Brain- 
erd;  no  miracle  attests  with  diviner  force 
the  truth  of  Christianity  than  the  life  and 
work  of  such  a  man.  Alone  in  the  savage 
66 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

wilds  of  America,  struggling  day  and  night 
with  a  mortal  disease,,  unschooled  in  the 
care  of  souls,  having  access  to  the  Indians 
for  a  large  portion  of  time  only  through 
the  bungling  medium  of  a  pagan  interpret- 
er, with  the  Word  of  God  in  his  heart  and 
in  his  hand,  his  soul  fired  with  the  divine 
flame,  a  place  and  time  to  pour  out  his  soul 
to  God  in  prayer,  he  fully  established  the 
worship  of  God  and  secured  all  its  gracious 
results.  The  Indians  were  changed  with  a 
great  change  from  the  lowest  besotments 
of  an  ignorant  and  debased  heathenism  to 
pure,  devout,  intelligent  Christians;  all  vice 
reformed,  the  external  duties  of  Christiani- 
ty at  once  embraced  and  acted  on;  family 
prayer  set  up;  the  Sabbath  instituted  and 
religiously  observed;  the  internal  graces  of 
religion  exhibited  with  growing  sweetness 
and  strength.  The  solution  of  these  results 
is  found  in  David  Brainerd  himself,  not  in 
the  conditions  or  accidents  but  in  the  man 
Brainerd.  He  was  God's  man^  for  God 
first  and  last  and  all  the  time.  God  could 
flow  unhindered  through  him.     The  cm- 

67 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

nipotence  of  grace  was  neither  arrested  nor 
straightened  by  the  conditions  of  his  heart; 
the  whole  channel  was  broadened  and 
cleaned  out  for  God's  fullest  and  most  pow- 
erful passage,  so  that  God  with  all  his 
mighty  forces  could  come  down  on  the 
hopeless,  savage  wilderness,  and  transform 
it  into  his  blooming  and  fruitful  garden; 
for  nothing  is  too  hard  for  God  to  do  if  he 
can  get  the  right  kind  of  a  man  to  do  it 
with. 

Brainerd  lived  the  life  of  holiness  and 
prayer.  His  diary  is  full  and  monotonous 
with  the  record  of  his  seasons  of  fasting, 
meditation,  and  retirement.  The  time  he 
spent  in  private  prayer  amounted  to  many 
hours  daily.  "When  I  return  home,"  he 
said,  "and  give  myself  to  meditation, 
prayer,  and  fasting,  my  soul  longs  for  mor- 
tification, self-denial,  humility,  and  divorce- 
ment from  all  things  of  the  world."  "I 
have  nothing  to  do,"  he  said,  **with  earth, 
but  only  to  labor  in  it  honestly  for  God.  1 
do  not  desire  to  live  one  minute  for  any- 
thing which  earth  can  afford."  After  this 
6^ 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

high  order  did  he  pray :  "Feeling  somewhat 
of  the  sweetness  of  communion  with  God 
and  the  constraining  force  of  his  love,  and 
how  admirably  it  captivates  the  soul  and 
makes  all  the  desires  and  affections  to  cen- 
ter in  God,  I  set  apart  this  day  for  secret 
fasting  and  prayer,  to  entreat  God  to  direct 
and  bless  me  with  regard  to  the  great  work 
which  I  have  in  view  of  preaching  the  gos- 
pel, and  that  the  Lord  would  return  to  me 
and  show  me  the  light  of  his  countenance. 
I  had  little  life  and  power  in  the  forenoon. 
Near  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  God  en- 
abled me  to  wrestle  ardently  in  intercession 
for  my  absent  friends,  but  just  at  night  the 
Lord  visited  me  marvelously  in  prayer.  I 
think  my  soul  was  never  in  such  agony  be- 
fore. I  felt  no  restraint,  for  the  treasures 
of  divine  grace  were  opened  to  me.  I  wres- 
tled for  absent  friends,  for  the  ingathering 
of  souls,  for  multitudes  of  poor  souls,  and 
for  many  that  I  thought  were  the  children 
of  God,  personally,  in  many  distant  places. 
I  was  in  such  agony  from  sun  half  an  hour 
high  till  near  dark  that  I  was  all  over  wet 

69 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

with  sweat,  but  yet  it  seemed  to  me  I  had 
done  nothing.  O,  my  dear  Saviour  did 
sweat  blood  for  poor  souls !  I  longed  for 
more  compassion  toward  them.  I  felt  still 
in  a  sweet  frame,  under  a  sense  of  divine 
love  and  grace,  and  went  to  bed  in  such  a 
frame,  with  my  heart  set  on  God."  It  was 
prayer  which  gave  to  his  life  and  ministry 
their  marvelous  power. 

The  men  of  mighty  prayer  are  men  of 
spiritual  might.  Prayers  never  die.  Brain- 
erd's  whole  life  was  a  life  of  prayer.  By 
day  and  by  night  he  prayed.  Before  preach- 
ing and  after  preaching  he  prayed.  Riding 
through  the  interminable  solitudes  of  the 
forests  he  prayed.  On  his  bed  of  straw  he 
prayed.  Retiring  to  the  dense  and  lonely 
forests,  he  prayed.  Hour  by  hour,  day  after 
day,  early  morn  and  late  at  night,  he  was 
praying  and  fasting,  pouring  out  his  soul, 
interceding,  communing  with  God.  He  was 
with  God  mightily  in  prayer,  and  God  was 
with  him  mightily,  and  by  it  he  being  dead 
yet  speaketh  and  worketh,  and  will  speak 
and  work  till  the  end  comes,  and  among  the 
70 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

glorious  ones  of  that  glorious  day  he  will 
be  with  the  first. 

Jonathan  Edwards  says  of  him:  "His 
life  shows  the  right  way  to  success  in  the 
works  of  the  ministry.  He  sought  it  as  the 
soldier  seeks  victory  in  a  siege  or  battle ;  or 
as  a  man  that  runs  a  race  for  a  great  prize. 
Animated  with  love  to  Christ  and  souls, 
how  did  he  labor?  Always  fervently.  Not 
only  in  word  and  doctrine,  in  public  and  in 
private,  but  in  prayers  by  day  and  night, 
wrestling  with  God  in  secret  and  travailing 
in  birth  with  unutterable  groans  and  ag- 
onies, until  Christ  was  formed  in  the  hearts 
of  the  people  to  whom  he  was  sent.  Like  a 
true  son  of  Jacob,  he  persevered  in  wres- 
tling through  all  the  darkness  of  the  night, 
until  the  breaking  of  the  day !" 
71 


XII. 

For  nothing  reaches  the  heart  but  -what  is  from  the 
hearty  or  pierces  the  conscience  but  what  comes  from  a 
living  conscience, — William  Pknn. 

In  the  morning  was  more  engaged  in  preparing 
the  head  than  the  heart.  This  has  been  frequently  my 
error t  and  I  have  always  felt  the  evil  of  it^  especially 
in  prayer.  Reform  it,  then,  O  Lord!  Enlarge  my 
hearty  and  I  shall  preach. 

—  RoBKRT  Murray  McChsykb. 

A  sermon  that  has  more  head  infused  into  it  than 
heart  will  not  come  home  with  efficacy  to  the  hearers. 

— Richard  Cecil. 

Prayer,  with  its  manifold  and  many-sid- 
ed forces,  helps  the  mouth  to  utter  the  truth 
in  its  fullness  and  freedom.  The  preacher 
is  to  be  prayed  for,  the  preacher  is  made  by 
prayer.  The  preacher's  mouth  is  to  be 
prayed  for;  his  mouth  is  to  be  opened  and 
filled  by  prayer.  A  holy  mouth  is  made  by 
praying,  by  much  praying;  a  brave  mouth 
is  made  by  praying,  by  much  praying.  The 
Church  and  the  world,  God  and  heaven, 
7* 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

owe  much  to  Paul's  mouth;  Paul's  mouth 
owed  its  power  to  prayer. 

How  manifold,  illimitable,  valuable,  and 
helpful  prayer  is  to  the  preacher  in  so 
many  ways,  at  so  many  points,  in  every 
way !    One  great  value  is,  it  helps  his  heart. 

Praying  makes  the  preacher  a  heart 
preacher.  Prayer  puts  the  preacher's  heart 
into  the  preacher's  sermon ;  prayer  puts  the 
preacher's  sermon  into  the  preacher's  heart. 

The  heart  makes  the  preacher.  Men  of 
great  hearts  are  great  preachers.  Men  of 
bad  hearts  may  do  a  measure  of  good,  but 
this  is  rare.  The  hireling  and  the  stranger 
may  help  the  sheep  at  some  points,  but  it 
is  the  good  shepherd  with  the  good  shep- 
herd's heart  who  will  bless  the  sheep  and 
answer  the  full  measure  of  the  shepherd's 
place. 

We  have  emphasized  sermon-preparation 
until  we  have  lost  sight  of  the  important 
thing  to  be  prepared — the  heart.  A  pre- 
pared heart  is  much  better  than  a  prepared 
sermon.  A  prepared  heart  will  make  a 
prepared  sermon. 

73 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

Volumes  have  been  written  laying  down 
the  mechanics  and  taste  of  sermon-making, 
until  we  have  become  possessed  with  the 
idea  that  this  scaffolding  is  the  building. 
The  young  preacher  has  been  taught  to  lay 
out  all  his  strength  on  the  form,  taste,  and 
beauty  of  his  sermon  as  a  mechanical  and 
intellectual  product.  We  have  thereby  cul- 
tivated a  vicious  taste  among  the  people  and 
raised  the  clamor  for  talent  instead  of 
grace,  eloquence  instead  of  piety,  rhetoric 
instead  of  revelation,  reputation  and  bril- 
liancy instead  of  holiness.  By  it  we  have 
lost  the  true  idea  of  preaching,  lost  preach- 
ing power,  lost  pungent  conviction  for  sin, 
lost  the  rich  experience  and  elevated  Chris- 
tian character,  lost  the  authority  over  con- 
sciences and  lives  which  always  results 
from  genuine  preaching. 

It  would  not  do  to  say  that  preachers 
study  too  much.  Some  of  them  do  not 
study  at  all;  others  do  not  study  enough. 
Numbers  do  not  study  the  right  way  to 
show  themselves  workmen  approved  of 
God.  But  our  great  lack  is  not  in  head 
74 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

culture,  but  in  heart  culture;  not  lack  of 
knowledge  but  lack  of  holiness  is  our  sad 
and  telling  defect — not  that  we  know  too 
much,  but  that  we  do  not  meditate  on  God 
and  his  word  and  watch  and  fast  and  pray 
enough.  The  heart  is  the  great  hindrance 
to  our  preaching.  Words  pregnant  with 
divine  truth  find  in  our  hearts  nonconduc- 
tors ;  arrested,  they  fall  shorn  and  powerless. 
Can  ambition,  that  lusts  after  praise  and 
place,  preach  the  gospel  of  Him  who  made 
himself  of  no  reputation  and  took  on  Him 
the  form  of  a  servant?  Can  the  proud, 
the  vain,  the  egotistical  preach  the  gospel  of 
him  who  was  meek  and  lowly?  Can  the 
bad-tempered,  passionate,  selfish,  hard, 
worldly  man  preach  the  system  which 
teems  with  long-suffering,  self-denial,  ten- 
derness, which  imperatively  demands  sep- 
aration from  enmity  and  crucifixion  to  the 
world?  Can  the  hireling  official,  heartless, 
perfunctory,  preach  the  gospel  which  de- 
mands the  shepherd  to  give  his  life  for  the 
sheep?  Can  the  covetous  man,  who  counts 
salary  and  money,  preach  the  gospel  till  he 
75 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

has  gleaned  his  heart  and  can  say  in  the 
spirit  of  Christ  and  Paul  in  the  words  of 
Wesley:  "I  count  it  dung  and  dross;  I 
trample  it  under  my  feet;  I  (yet  not  I,  but 
the  grace  of  God  in  me)  esteem  it  just  as 
the  mire  of  the  streets,  I  desire  it  not,  I 
seek  it  not?"  God's  revelation  does  not 
need  the  light  of  human  genius,  the  polish 
and  strength  of  human  culture,  the  bril- 
liancy of  human  thought,  the  force  of  hu- 
man brains  to  adorn  or  enforce  it;  but  it 
does  demand  the  simplicity,  the  docility, 
humility,  and  faith  of  a  child's  heart. 

It  was  this  surrender  and  subordination 
of  intellect  and  genius  to  the  divine  and 
spiritual  forces  which  made  Paul  peerless 
among  the  apostles.  It  was  this  which  gave 
Wesley  his  power  and  radicated  his  labors 
in  the  history  of  humanity.  This  gave  to 
Loyola  the  strength  to  arrest  the  retreat- 
ing forces  of  Catholicism. 

Our  great  need  is  heart-preparation. 
Luther  held  it  as  an  axiom:  "He  who  has 
prayed  well  has  studied  well."  We  do  not 
say  that  men  are  not  to  think  and  use  their 

76 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

intellects;  but  he  will  use  his  intellect  best 
who  cultivates  his  heart  most.  We  do  not 
say  that  preachers  should  not  be  students; 
but  we  do  say  that  their  great  study  should 
be  the  Bible,  and  he  studies  the  Bible  best 
who  has  kept  his  heart  with  diligence.  We 
do  not  say  that  the  preacher  should  not 
know  men,  but  he  will  be  the  greater  adept 
in  human  nature  who  has  fathomed  the 
depths  and  intricacies  of  his  own  heart.  We 
do  say  that  while  the  channel  of  preach- 
ing is  the  mind,  its  fountain  is  the  heart; 
you  may  broaden  and  deepen  the  channel, 
but  if  you  do  not  look  well  to  the  purity 
and  depth  of  the  fountain,  you  will  have  a 
dry  or  polluted  channel.  We  do  say  that 
almost  any  man  of  common  intelligence  has 
sense  enough  to  preach  the  gospel,  but  very 
few  have  grace  enough  to  do  so.  We  do 
say  that  he  who  has  struggled  with  his 
own  heart  and  conquered  it;  who  has 
taught  it  humility,  faith,  love,  truth,  mercy, 
sympathy,  courage;  who  can  pour  the  rich 
treasures  of  the  heart  thus  trained,  through 
a  manly  intellect,  all  surcharged  with  the 
77 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

power  of  the  gospel  on  the  consciences  of 
his  hearers — such  a  one  will  be  the  truest, 
most  successful  preacher  in  the  esteem  of 
his  Lord 

78 


XIII. 

Study  not  to  be  a  fine  preacher.  Jerichos  are  blown 
down  with  rams'  horns.  Look  simply  unto  Jesus  for 
preaching  food;  and  what  is  wanted  will  be  given^ 
and  what  is  given  will  be  blessed,  whether  it  be  a  bar- 
ley grain  or  a  wheaten  loaf  a  crust  or  a  crumb. 
Tour  mouth  will  be  a  flowing  stream  or  a  fountain 
sealed,  according  as  your  heart  is.  Avoid  all  contro- 
versy in  preaching,  talking,  or  writing;  f  reach  noth- 
ing down   but  the  devil,  and  nothing  up  but  Jesus 

Christ. — B  ER  RIDGE. 

The  heart  is  the  saviour  of  the  world. 
Heads  do  not  save.  Genius,  brains,  bril- 
Hancy,  strength,  natural  gifts  do  not  save. 
The  gospel  flows  through  hearts.  All  the 
mightiest  forces  are  heart  forces.  All  the 
sweetest  and  loveliest  graces  are  heart 
graces.  Great  hearts  make  great  charac- 
ters; great  hearts  make  divine  characters. 
God  is  love.  There  is  nothing  greater  than 
love,  nothing  greater  than  God.  Hearts 
make  heaven ;  heaven  is  love.  There  is  noth- 
ing higher,  nothing  sweeter,  than  heaven.  It 
79 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

is  the  heart  and  not  the  head  which  makes 
God's  great  preachers.  The  heart  counts 
much  every  way  in  religion.  The  heart 
must  speak  from  the  pulpit.  The  heart 
must  hear  in  the  pew.  In  fact,  we  serve 
God  with  our  hearts.  Head  homage  does 
not  pass  current  in  heaven. 

We  believe  that  one  of  the  serious  and 
most  popular  errors  of  the  modern  pulpit 
is  the  putting  of  more  thought  than  prayer, 
of  more  head  than  of  heart  in  its  sermons. 
Big  hearts  make  big  preachers ;  good  hearts 
make  good  preachers.  A  theological  school 
to  enlarge  and  cultivate  the  heart  is  the 
golden  desideratum  of  the  gospel.  The 
pastor  binds  his  people  to  him  and  rules 
his  people  by  his  heart.  They  may  ad- 
mire his  gifts,  they  may  be  proud  of  his 
ability,  they  may  be  affected  for  the  time 
by  his  sermons;  but  the  stronghold  of 
his  power  is  his  heart.  His  scepter  is  love. 
The  throne  of  his  power  is  his  heart. 

The  good  shepherd  gives  his  life  for  the 
sheep.  Heads  never  make  martyrs.  It  is 
the  heart  which  surrenders  the  life  to  love 
80 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

and  fidelity.  It  takes  great  courage  to  be 
a  faithful  pastor,  but  the  heart  alone  can 
supply  this  courage.  Gifts  and  genius  may 
be  brave,  but  it  is  the  gifts  and  genius  of 
the  heart  and  not  of  the  head. 

It  is  easier  to  fill  the  head  than  it  is  to 
prepare  the  heart.  It  is  easier  to  make  a 
brain  sermon  than  a  heart  sermon.  It  was 
heart  that  drew  the  Son  of  God  from  heav- 
en. It  is  heart  that  will  draw  men  to  heav- 
en. Men  of  heart  is  what  the  world  needs 
to  sympathize  with  its  woe,  to  kiss  away 
its  sorrows,  to  compassionate  its  misery, 
and  to  alleviate  its  pain.  Christ  was  emi- 
nently the  man  of  sorrows,  because  he  was 
preeminently  the  man  of  heart. 

"Give  me  thy  heart,"  is  God's  requisi- 
tion of  men.  "Give  me  thy  heart !"  is  man's 
demand  of  man. 

A  professional  ministry  is  a  heartless 
ministry.  When  salary  plays  a  great  part 
in  the  ministry,  the  heart  plays  little  part. 
We  may  make  preaching  our  business,  and 
not  put  our  hearts  in  the  business.  He  who 
puts  self  to  the  front  in  his  preaching  puts 
6  8i 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

heart  to  the  rear.  He  who  does  not  sow 
with  his  heart  in  his  study  will  never  reap 
a  harvest  for  God.  The  closet  is  the  heart's 
study.  We  will  learn  more  about  how  to 
preach  and  what  to  preach  there  than  we 
can  learn  in  our  libraries.  "Jesus  wept"  is 
the  shortest  and  biggest  verse  in  the  Bible. 
It  is  he  who  goes  forth  weeping  (not 
preaching  great  sermons),  bearing  precious 
seed,  who  shall  come  again  rejoicing,  bring- 
ing his  sheaves  with  him. 

Praying  gives  sense,  brings  wisdom, 
broadens  and  strengthens  the  mind.  The 
closet  is  a  perfect  school-teacher  and  school- 
house  for  the  preacher.  Thought  is  not 
only  brightened  and  clarified  in  prayer,  but 
thought  is  born  in  prayer.  We  can  learn 
more  in  an  hour  praying,  when  praying  in- 
deed, than  from  many  hours  in  the  study. 
Books  are  in  the  closet  which  can  be  found 
and  read  nowhere  else.  Revelations  are 
made  in  the  closet  which  are  made  nowhere 
else. 

82 


s 
tri' 


XIV. 

One  bright  beyiison  -which  private  frayer  bring, 
do-wn  upon  the  ministry  is  an  indescribable  and  in 
i7nitable  sotnething — an  unction  fro?n  the  Holy  One. 
.  .  ,  If  the  anointing  tvhich  -we  bear  come  not  from 
the  Lord  of  hosts,  ive  are  deceivers,  since  only  in  prayer 
can  -we  obtain  it.  Let  us  C07itinue  histant,  constant ^ 
fervent  in  supplication.  Let  your  fleece  lie  on  the 
thrashing  floor  of  supplication  till  it  is  zuet  ivith  the 
deiv  of  heaven. — Spurgeon. 

Alexander  Knox,  a  Christian  philoso- 
pher of  the  days  of  Wesley,  not  an  adher- 
ent but  a  strong  personal  friend  of  Wesley, 
and  with  much  spiritual  sympathy  with  the 
Wesleyan  movement,  writes:  ''It  is  strange 
and  lamentable,  but  I  verily  believe  the 
fact  to  be  that  except  among  Methodists 
and  Methodistical  clergyman,  there  is  not 
much  interesting  preaching  in  England. 
The  clergy,  too  generally,  have  absolutely 
lost  the  art.  There  is,  I  conceive,  in  the 
great  laws  of  the  moral  world  a  kind  of  se- 
cret understanding  like  the  affinities  in 
83 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

chemistry,  between  rightly  promulgated 
religious  truth  and  the  deepest  feelings  of 
the  human  mind.  Where  the  one  is  duly 
exhibited,  the  other  will  respond.  Did  not 
our  hearts  burn  within  us? — ^but  to  this 
devout  feeling  is  indispensable  in  the  speak- 
er. Now,  I  am  obliged  to  state  from  my 
own  observation  that  this  onction,  as  the 
French  not  unfitly  term  it,  is  beyond  all 
comparison  more  likely  to  be  found  in  En- 
gland in  a  Methodist  conventicle  than  in  a 
parish  Church.  This,  and  this  alone,  seems 
really  to  be  that  which  fills  the  Methodist 
houses  and  thins  the  Churches.  I  am,  I  ver- 
ily think,  no  enthusiast;  I  am  a  most  sin- 
cere and  cordial  churchman,  a  humble  disci- 
ple of  the  School  of  Hale  and  Boyle,  of 
Burnet  and  Leighton.  Now  I  must  aver 
that  when  I  was  in  this  country,  two  years 
ago,  I  did  not  hear  a  single  preacher  who 
taught  me  like  my  own  great  masters  but 
such  as  are  deemed  Methodistical.  And  I 
510W  despair  of  getting  an  atom  of  heart- 
instruction  from  any  other  quarter.  The 
Methodist  preachers   (however  I  may  not 

84 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

always  approve  of  all  their  expressions)  do 
most  assuredly  diffuse  this  true  religion 
and  undefiled.  I  felt  real  pleasure  last 
Sunday.  I  can  bear  witness  that  the 
preacher  did  at  once  speak  the  words  of 
truth  and  soberness.  There  was  no  elo- 
quence— the  honest  man  never  dreamed  of 
such  a  thing — but  there  was  far  better:  a 
cordial  communication  of  vitalized  truth.  I 
say  vitalized  because  what  he  declared  to 
others  it  was  impossible  not  to  feel  he  lived 
on  himself." 

This  unction  is  the  art  of  preaching.  The 
preacher  who  never  had  this  unction  never 
had  the  art  of  preaching.  The  preacher 
who  has  lost  this  unction  has  lost  the  art  of 
preaching.  Whatever  other  arts  he  may 
have  and  retain — the  art  of  sermon-mak- 
ing, the  art  of  eloquence,  the  art  of  great, 
clear  thinking,  the  art  of  pleasing  an  audi- 
ence— he  has  lost  the  divine  art  of  preach- 
ing. This  unction  makes  God's  truth  pow- 
erful and  interesting,  draws  and  attracts, 
edifies,  convicts,  saves. 

This    unction    vitalizes    God's    revealed 

85 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

truth,  makes  it  living  and  life-giving.  Even 
God's  truth  spoken  without  this  unction  is 
light,  dead,  and  deadening.  Though 
abounding  in  truth,  though  weighty  with 
thought,  though  sparkling  with  rhetoric, 
though  pointed  by  logic,  though  powerful 
by  earnestness,  without  this  divine  unction 
it  issues  in  death  and  not  in  life.  Mr. 
Spurgeon  says:  "I  wonder  how  long  we 
raight  beat  our  brains  before  we  could 
plainly  put  into  word  what  is  meant  by 
preaching  with  unction.  Yet  he  who 
preaches  knows  its  presence,  and  he  who 
hears  soon  detects  its  absence.  Samaria,  in 
famine,  typifies  a  discourse  without  it.  Je- 
rusalem, with  her  feast  of  fat  things,  full 
of  marrow,  may  represent  a  sermon  en- 
riched with  it.  Every  one  knows  what  the 
freshness  of  the  morning  is  when  orient 
pearls  abound  on  every  blade  of  grass,  but 
who  can  describe  it,  much  less  produce  it  of 
itself?  Such  is  the  mystery  of  spiritual 
anointing.  We  know,  but  we  cannot  tell  to 
others  what  it  is.  It  is  as  easy  as  it  is  fool- 
ish, to  counterfeit  it.  Unction  is  a  thing 
^6 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

which  you  cannot  manufacture,  and  its 
counterfeits  are  worse  than  worthless.  Yet 
it  is,  in  itself,  priceless,  and  beyond  meas- 
ure needful  if  you  would  edify  believers  and 
bring  sinners  to  Christ." 

87 


XV. 

speak  for  eternity.  Ahov^  all  things,  cultivate 
your  own  spirit.  A  word  spoken  by  you  when 
your  conscience  is  clear  and  your  heart  full  of 
God's  Spirit  is  worth  ten  thousand  words  spoken 
in  ttnhelief  and  sin.  Remember  that  God,  and  not 
mem,  must  have  the  glory.  If  the  veil  of  the 
world's  machinery  were  lifted  off,  how  much  we 
would  Und  is  done  in  answer  to  the  prayers  of 
God's  children. 

—Robert  Murray  McChbyne. 

Unction  is  that  indefinable,  indescrib- 
able something  which  an  old,  renowned 
Scotch  preacher  describes  thus :  "There  is 
sometimes  somewhat  in  preaching  that 
cannot  be  ascribed  either  to  matter  or  ex- 
pression, and  cannot  be  described  what  it 
is,  or  from  whence  it  cometh,  but  with  a 
sweet  violence  it  pierceth  into  the  heart 
and  affections  and  comes  immediately 
from  the  Lord;  but  if  there  be  any  way 
to  obtain  such  a  thing,  it  is  by  the  heav- 
enly disposition  of  the  speaker/' 

;We  call  it  unction.    It  is  this  unction 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

which  makes  the  word  of  God  "quick  and 
powerful,  and  sharper  than  any  two-edged 
sword,  piercing  even  to  the  dividing  asun- 
der of  soul  and  spirit,  and  of  the  joints  and 
marrow,  and  a  discerner  of  the  thoughts 
and  intents  of  the  heart."  It  is  this  unc- 
tion which  gives  the  words  of  the  preacher 
such  point,  sharpness,  and  power,  and 
which  creates  such  friction  and  stir  in  many 
a  dead  congregation.  The  same  truths 
have  been  told  in  the  strictness  of  the  let- 
ter, smooth  as  human  oil  could  make  them ; 
but  no  signs  of  life,  not  a  pulse  throb;  all 
as  peaceful  as  the  grave  and  as  dead.  The 
same  preacher  in  the  meanwhile  receives  a 
baptism  of  this  unction,  the  divine  inflatus 
is  on  him,  the  letter  of  the  Word  has  been 
embellished  and  fired  by  this  mysterious 
power,  and  the  throbbings  of  life  beg^n — 
life  which  receives  or  life  which  resists. 
The  unction  pervades  and  convicts  the  con- 
science and  breaks  the  heart. 

This  divine  unction  is  the  feature  which 
separates  and  distinguishes  true  gospel 
preaching  from  all  other  methods  of  pre- 

89 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

senting  the  truth,  and  which  creates  a  wide 
spiritual  chasm  between  the  preacher  who 
has  it  and  the  one  who  has  it  not.  It  backs 
and  impregns  revealed  truth  with  all  the 
energy  of  God.  Unction  is  simply  putting 
God  in  his  own  word  and  on  his  own 
preacher.  By  mighty  and  great  prayerful- 
ness  and  by  continual  prayerfulness,  it  is 
all  potential  and  personal  to  the  preacher ;  it 
inspires  and  clarifies  his  intellect,  gives  in- 
sight and  grasp  and  projecting  power;  it 
gives  to  the  preacher  heart  power,  which  is 
greater  than  head  power;  and  tenderness, 
purity,  force  flow  from  the  heart  by  it. 
Enlargement,  freedom,  fullness  of  thought, 
directness  and  simplicity  of  utterance  are 
the  fruits  of  this  unction. 

Often  earnestness  is  mistaken  for  this 
unction.  He  who  has  the  divine  unction 
will  be  earnest  in  the  very  spiritual  nature 
of  things,  but  there  may  be  a  vast  deal  of 
earnestness  without  the  least  mixture  of 
urxtion. 

Earnestness  and  unction  look  alike  from 
some  points  of  view.  Earnestness  may  be 
90 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

readily  and  without  detection  substituted 
or  mistaken  for  unction.  It  requires  a  spir- 
itual eye  and  a  spiritual  taste  to  discrim- 
inate. 

Earnestness  may  be  sincere,  serious,  ar- 
dent, and  persevering.  It  goes  at  a  thing 
with  good  will,  pursues  it  with  persever- 
ance, and  urges  it  with  ardor;  puts 
force  in  it.  But  all  these  forces  do 
not  rise  higher  than  the  mere  human. 
The  man  is  in  it — the  whole  man,  with 
all  that  he  has  of  will  and  heart,  of 
brain  and  genius,  of  planning  and  working 
and  talking.  He  has  set  himself  to  some 
purpose  which  has  mastered  him,  and  he 
pursues  to  master  it.  There  may  be  none 
of  God  in  it.  There  may  be  little  of  God 
in  it,  because  there  is  so  much  of  the  man 
in  it.  He  may  present  pleas  in  advocacy  of 
his  earnest  purpose  which  please  or  touch 
and  move  or  overwhelm  with  conviction  of 
their  importance;  and  in  all  this  earnest- 
ness may  move  along  earthly  ways,  being 
propelled  by  human  forces  only,  its  altar 
made  by  earthly  hands  and  its  fire  kindled 
91 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

by  earthly  flames.  It  is  said  of  a  rather  fa- 
mous preacher  of  gifts,  whose  construction 
of  Scripture  was  to  his  fancy  or  purpose, 
that  he  ''grew  very  eloquent  over  his  own 
exegesis."  So  men  grow  exceeding  earnest 
over  their  own  plans  or  movements.  Ear- 
nestness may  be  selfishness  simulated. 

What  of  unction  ?  It  is  the  indefinable  in 
preaching  which  makes  it  preaching.  It  is 
that  which  distinguishes  and  separates 
preaching  from  all  mere  human  addresses. 
It  is  the  divine  in  preaching.  It  makes  the 
preaching  sharp  to  those  who  need  sharp- 
ness. It  distills  as  the  dew  to  those  who 
need  to  be  refreshed.  It  is  well  described 
as: 

"a  two-edged  sword 

Of  heavenly  temper  keen, 
And  double  were  the  wounds  it  made 

Where'er  it  glanced  between. 
*Twas  death  to  sin;  'twas  life 

To  all  who  mourned  for  sin. 
It  kindled  and  it  silenced  strife, 

Made  war  and  peace  within." 

This  unction  comes  to  the  preacher  not  in 
the  study  but  in  the  closet.     It  is  heaven's 
92 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

distillation  in  answer  to  prayer.  It  is  the 
sweetest  exhalation  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It 
impregnates,  suffuses,  softens,  percolates, 
cuts,  and  soothes.  It  carries  the  Word  like 
dynamite,  like  salt,  like  sugar;  makes  the 
Word  a  soother,  an  arraigner,  a  revealer,  a 
searcher;  makes  the  hearer  a  culprit  or  a 
saint,  makes  him  weep  like  a  child  and  live 
like  a  giant;  opens  his  heart  and  his  purse 
as  gently,  yet  as  strongly  as  the  spring 
opens  the  leaves.  This  unction  is  not  the 
gift  of  genius.  It  is  not  found  in  the  halls 
of  learning.  No  eloquence  can  woo  it.  No 
industry  can  win  it.  No  prelatical  hands 
can  confer  it.  It  is  the  gift  of  God— the 
signet  set  to  his  own  messengers.  It  is 
heaven's  knighthood  given  to  the  chosen 
true  and  brave  ones  who  have  sought  this 
anointed  honor  through  many  an  hour  of 
tearful,  wrestling  prayer. 

Earnestness  is  good  and  impressive ;  gen- 
ius is  gifted  and  great.  Thought  kindles 
and  inspires,  but  it  takes  a  diviner  endow- 
ment, a  more  powerful  energy  than  ear- 
nestness or  genius  or  thought  to  break  the 
93 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

chains  of  sin,  to  win  estranged  and  de- 
praved hearts  to  God,  to  repair  the  breaches 
and  restore  the  Church  to  her  old  ways  of 
purity  and  power.  Nothing  but  this  holy 
unction  can  do  this. 

94 


XVI. 

All  the  minister's  efforts  ivill  be  vanity  or  'worse  tlian 
'Vanity  if  he  have  not  unction.  Unction  must  come 
dcrvjn  from  heaven  and  spread  a  savor  and  feeling  and 
relish  over  his  ministry;  and  among  the  other  means 
of  qualifying  himself  for  his  office^  the  Bible  must  hold 
the  first  place^  and  the  last  also  must  be  given  to  the 
Word  of  God  and  prayer. — Richard  Cecil. 

In  the  Christian  system  unction  is  the 
anointing  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  separating 
unto  God's  work  and  quaHfying  for  it. 
This  unction  is  the  one  divine  enablement 
by  which  the  preacher  accomplishes  the  pe- 
culiar and  saving  ends  of  preaching.  With- 
out this  unction  there  are  no  true  spiritual 
results  accomplished;  the  results  and  forces 
in  preaching  do  not  rise  above  the  results 
of  unsanctified  speech.  Without  unction 
the  former  is  as  potent  as  the  pulpit. 

This  divine  unction  on  the  preacher  gen- 
erates through  the  Word  of  God  the  spir- 
itual results  that  flow  from  the  gospel;  and 
95 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

without  this  unction,  these  results  are  not 
secured.  Many  pleasant  impressions  may 
be  made,  but  these  all  fall  far  below  the 
ends  of  gospel  preaching.  This  unction 
may  be  simulated.  There  are  many  things 
that  look  like  it,  there  are  many  results  that 
resemble  its  effects;  but  they  are  foreign 
to  its  results  and  to  its  nature.  The  fervor 
or  softness  excited  by  a  pathetic  or  emo- 
tional sermon  may  look  like  the  movements 
of  the  divine  unction,  but  they  have  no  pun- 
gent, penetrating,  heart-breaking  force.  No 
heart-healing  balm  is  there  in  these  surface, 
sympathetic,  emotional  movements;  they 
are  not  radical,  neither  sin-searching  nor 
sin-curing. 

This  divine  unction  is  the  one  distin- 
guishing feature  that  separates  true  gospel 
preaching  from  all  other  methods  of  pre- 
senting truth.  It  backs  and  interpenetrates 
the  revealed  truth  with  all  the  force  of  God. 
It  illumines  the  Word  and  broadens  and 
enrichens  the  intellect  and  empowers  it  to 
grasp  and  apprehend  the  Word.  It  quali- 
fies the  preacher's  heart,  and  brings  it  to 

96 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

that  condition  of  tenderness,  of  purity,  of 
force  and  light  that  are  necessary  to  secure 
the  highest  results.  This  unction  gives  to 
the  preacher  liberty  and  enlargement  of 
thought  and  soul — a  freedom,  fullness,  and 
directness  of  utterance  that  can  be  secured 
by  no  other  process. 

Without  this  unction  on  the  preacher  the 
gospel  has  no  more  power  to  propagate 
itself  than  any  other  system  of  truth.  This 
is  the  seal  of  its  divinity.  Unction  in  the 
preacher  puts  God  in  the  gospel.  Without, 
the  unction,  God  is  absent,  and  the  gospel 
is  left  to  the  low  and  unsatisfactory  forces 
that  the  ingenuity,  interest,  or  talents  of 
men  can  devise  to  enforce  and  project  its 
doctrines. 

It  is  in  this  element  that  the  pulpit  often- 
er  fails  than  in  any  other  element.  Just  at 
this  all-important  point  it  lapses.  Learning 
it  may  have,  brilliancy  and  eloquence  may 
delight  and  charm,  sensation  or  less  of- 
fensive methods  may  bring  the  populace  in 
crowds,  mental  power  may  Impress  and  en- 
force truth  with  all  its  resources;  but  with- 
7  97 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

out  this  unction,  each  and  all  these  will  be 
but  as  the  fretful  assault  of  the  waters  on 
a  Gibraltar.  Spray  and  foam  may  cover 
and  spangle;  but  the  rocks  are  there  still, 
unimpressed  and  unimpressible.  The  hu- 
man heart  can  no  more  be  swept  of  its  hard- 
ness and  sin  by  these  human  forces  than 
these  rocks  can  be  swept  away  by  the 
ocean's  ceaseless  flow. 

This  unction  is  the  consecration  force, 
and  its  presence  the  continuous  test  of  that 
consecration.  It  is  this  divine  anointing 
on  the  preacher  that  secures  his  consecra- 
tion to  God  and  his  work.  Other  forces 
and  motives  may  call  him  to  the  work,  but 
this  only  is  consecration.  A  separation  to 
God's  work  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
is  the  only  consecration  recognized  by  God 
as  legitimate. 

The  unction,  the  divine  unction,  this 
heavenly  anointing,  is  what  the  pulpit  needs 
and  must  have.  This  divine  and  heavenly 
oil  put  on  it  by  the  imposition  of  God's 
hand  must  soften  and  lubricate  the  whole 
man — ^heart,  head,  spirit — until  it  separates 

98 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

him  with  a  mighty  separation  from  all 
earthly,  secular,  worldly,  selfish  motives 
and  aims,  separating  him  to  everything  that 
is  pure  and  Godlike. 

It  is  the  presence  of  this  unction  on  the 
preacher  that  creates  the  stir  and  friction 
in  many  a  congregation.  The  same  truths 
have  been  told  in  the  strictness  of  the  let- 
ter, but  no  ruffle  has  been  seen,  no  pain  or 
pulsation  felt.  All  is  quiet  as  a  graveyard. 
Another  preacher  comes,  and  this  mysteri- 
ous influence  is  on  him;  the  letter  of  the 
Word  has  been  fired  by  the  Spirit,  the 
throes  of  a  mighty  movement  are  felt,  it  is 
the  unction  that  pervades  and  stirs  the  con- 
science and  breaks  the  heart.  Unctionless 
preaching  makes  everything  hard,  dry,  ac- 
rid, dead. 

This  unction  is  not  a  memory  or  an  era 
of  the  past  only;  it  is  a  present,  realized, 
conscious  fact.  It  belongs  to  the  experi- 
ence of  the  man  as  well  as  to  his  preaching. 
It  is  that  which  transforms  him  into  the 
image  of  his  divine  Master,  as  well  as  that 
by  which  he  declares  the  truths  of  Christ 
99 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

with  power.  It  is  so  much  the  power  in 
the  ministry  as  to  make  all  else  seem  feeble 
and  vain  without  it,  and  by  its  presence  to 
atone  for  the  absence  of  all  other  and  fee- 
bler forces. 

This  unction  is  not  an  inalienable  gift 
It  is  a  conditional  gift,  and  its  presence  is 
perpetuated  and  increased  by  the  same 
process  by  which  it  was  at  first  secured ;  by 
unceasing  prayer  to  God,  by  impassioned 
desires  after  God,  by  estimating  it,  by  seek- 
ing it  with  tireless  ardor,  by  deeming  all 
else  loss  and  failure  without  it. 

How  and  whence  comes  this  unction? 
Direct  from  God  in  answer  to  prayer. 
Praying  hearts  only  are  the  hearts  filled 
with  this  holy  oil;  praying  lips  only  are 
anointed  with  this  divine  unction. 

Prayer,  much  prayer,  is  the  price  of 
preaching  unction;  prayer,  much  prayer,  is 
the  one,  sole  condition  of  keeping  this  unc- 
tion. Without  unceasing  prayer  the  unc- 
tion never  comes  to  the  preacher.  With- 
out perseverance  in  prayer,  the  unction, 
like  the  manna  overkept,  breeds  worms. 
loo 


XVII. 

Give  me  one  hundred  preachers  who  fear  nothing 
but  sin  and  desire  nothing  but  God^  and  I  care  not  a 
straw  whether  they  be  clergymen  or  laymen;  such  alone 
will  sfiake  the  gates  of  hell  aiid  set  up  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  on  earth.  God  does  nothing  but  in  answer  to 
prayer. — John  Wesley. 

The  apostles  knew  the  necessity  and 
worth  of  prayer  to  their  ministry.  They 
knew  that  their  high  commission  as  apos- 
tles, instead  of  relieving  them  from  the  ne- 
cessity of  prayer,  committed  them  to  it  by 
a  more  urgent  need ;  so  that  they  were  ex- 
ceedingly jealous  else  some  other  important 
work  should  exhaust  their  time  and  prevent 
their  praying  as  they  ought;  so  they  ap- 
pointed laymen  to  look  after  the  delicate 
and  engrossing  duties  of  ministering  to  the 
poor,  that  they  (the  apostles)  might,  un- 
hindered, "give  themselves  continually  to 
prayer  and  to  the  ministry  of  the  word." 
Prayer  is   put  first,  and  their   relation  to 

lOI 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

prayer  is  put  most  strongly — "give  them- 
selves to  it/'  making  a  business  of  it,  sur- 
rendering themselves  to  praying,  putting 
fervor,  urgency,  perseverance,  and  time  in 
it. 

How  holy,  apostolic  men  devoted  them- 
selves to  this  divine  work  of  prayer! 
**Night  and  day  praying  exceedingly,''  says 
Paul.  "We  will  give  ourselves  continually 
to  prayer"  is  the  consensus  of  apostolic  de- 
votement.  How  these  New  Testament 
preachers  laid  themselves  out  in  prayer  for 
God's  people !  How  they  put  God  in  full 
force  into  their  Churches  by  their  praying! 
These  holy  apostles  did  not  vainly  fancy 
that  they  had  met  their  high  and  solemn 
duties  by  delivering  faithfully  God's  word, 
but  their  preaching  was  made  to  stick  and 
tell  by  the  ardor  and  insistence  of  their 
praying.  Apostolic  praying  was  as  tax- 
ing, toilsome,  and  imperative  as  apostolic 
preaching.  They  prayed  mightily  day  and 
night  to  bring  their  people  to  the  highest 
regions  of  faith  and  holiness.  They  prayed 
mightier  still  to,  hold  them  to  this  high 
1 02 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

spiritual  altitude.  The  preacher  who  has 
never  learned  in  the  school  of  Christ  the 
high  and  divine  art  of  intercession  for  his 
people  will  never  learn  the  art  of  preach- 
ing, though  homiletics  be  poured  into  him 
by  the  ton,  and  though  he  be  the  most  gift- 
ed genius  in  sermon-making  and  sermon- 
delivery. 

The  prayers  of  apostolic,  saintly  leaders 
do  much  in  making  saints  of  those  who 
are  not  apostles.  If  the  Church  leaders  in 
after  years  had  been  as  particular  and  fer- 
vent in  praying  for  their  people  as  the  apos- 
tles were,  the  sad,  dark  times  of  worldliness 
and  apostasy  had  not  marred  the  history 
and  eclipsed  the  glory  and  arrested  the  ad- 
vance of  the  Church.  Apostolic  praying 
makes  apostolic  saints  and  keeps  apostolic 
times  of  purity  and  power  in  the  Church. 

What  loftiness  of  soul,  what  purity  and 
elevation  of  motive,  what  unselfishness, 
what  self-sacrifice,  what  exhaustive  toil, 
what  ardor  of  spirit,  what  divine  tact 
are  requisite  to  be  an  intercessor  for  men ! 

The  preacher  is  to  lay  himself  out  in 
103 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

prayer  for  his  people;  not  that  they  might 
be  saved,  simply,  but  that  they  be  mightily 
saved.  The  apostles  laid  themselves  out  in 
prayer  that  their  saints  might  be  perfect; 
not  that  they  should  have  a  little  relish  for 
the  things  of  God,  but  that  they  "might  be 
filled  with  all  the  fullness  of  God."  Paul 
did  not  rely  on  his  apostolic  preaching  to 
secure  this  end,  but  "for  this  cause  he 
bowed  his  knees  to  the  Father  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ."  Paul's  praying  carried 
Paul's  converts  farther  along  the  highway 
of  sainthood  than  Paul's  preaching  did. 
Epaphras  did  as  much  or  more  by  prayer 
for  the  Colossian  saints  than  by  his  preach- 
ing. He  labored  fervently  always  in 
prayer  for  them  that  "they  might  stand  per- 
fect and  complete  in  all  the  will  of  God." 

Preachers  are  preeminently  God's  lead- 
ers. They  are  primarily  responsible  for  the 
condition  of  the  Church.  They  shape  its 
character,  give  tone  and  direction  to  its 
life. 

Mucn  every  way  depends  on  these  lead- 
ers. They  shape  the  times  and  the  institu- 
104 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

tions.    The  Church  is  divine,  the  treasure  it 
incases  is  heavenly,  but  it  bears  the  imprint 
of  the  human.     The  treasure  is  in  earthen 
vessels,  and  it  smacks  of  the  vessel.     The 
Church  of  God  makes,  or  is  made  by,  its 
leaders.    Whether  it  makes  them  or  is  made 
by  them,  it  will  be  what  its  leaders  are; 
spiritual  if  they  are  so,  secular  if  they  are, 
conglomerate  if  its  leaders  are.  Israel's  kings 
gave  character  to  Israel's  piety.    A  Church 
rarely  revolts  against  or  rises  above  the  re- 
ligion  of   its   leaders.     Strongly   spiritual 
leaders;  men  of  holy  might,  at  the  lead, 
are   tokens   of  God's   favor;  disaster  and 
weakness    follow    the    wake    of    feeble   or 
worldly    leaders.      Israel    had    fallen    low 
when  God  gave  children  to  be  their  princes 
and  babes  to  rule  over  them.     No  happy 
state  is  predicted  by  the  prophets  when  chil- 
dren oppress  God's  Israel  and  women  rule 
over  them.     Times  of  spiritual  leadership 
are  times  of  great  spiritual  prosperity  to  the 
Church. 

Prayer  is  one  of  the  eminent  characteris- 
tics of  strong  spiritual  leadership.    Men  of 
105 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

mighty  prayer  are  men  of  might  and  mold 
things.  Their  power  with  God  has  the 
conquering  tread. 

How  can  a  man  preach  who  does  not  get 
his  message  fresh  from  God  in  the  closet? 
How  can  he  preach  without  having  his 
faith  quickened,  his  vision  cleared,  and  his 
heart  warmed  by  his  closeting  with  God? 
Alas,  for  the  pulpit  lips  which  are  un- 
touched by  this  closet  flame.  Dry  and  unc- 
tionless  they  will  ever  be,  and  truths  di- 
vine will  never  come  with  power  from  such 
lips.  As  far  as  the  real  interests  of  reli- 
gion are  concerned,  a  pulpit  without  a 
closet  will  always  be  a  barren  thing. 

A  preacher  may  preach  in  an  official,  en- 
tertaining, or  learned  way  without  prayer, 
but  between  this  kind  of  preaching  and 
sowing  God's  precious  seed  with  holy  hands 
and  prayerful,  weeping  hearts  there  is  an 
immeasurable  distance, 

A  prayerless  ministry  is  the  undertaker 

for  all  God's  truth  and  for  God's  Church. 

He  may  have  the  most  costly  casket  and 

the  most  beautiful  flowers,  but  it  is  a  funer- 

xo6 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

al,  notwithstanding  the  charmful  array.  A 
prayerless  Christian  will  never  learn  God's 
truth;  a  prayerless  ministry  will  never  be 
able  to  teach  God's  truth.  Ages  of  mil- 
lennial glory  have  been  lost  by  a  prayer- 
less Church.  The  coming  of  our  Lord  has 
been  postponed  indefinitely  by  a  prayerless 
Church.  Hell  has  enlarged  herself  and 
filled  her  dire  caves  in  the  presence  of  the 
dead  service  of  a  prayerless  Church. 

The  best,  the  greatest  offering  is  an 
offering  of  prayer.  If  the  preachers  of 
the  twentieth  century  will  learn  well  the 
lesson  of  prayer,  and  use  fully  the  power 
of  prayer,  the  millennium  will  come  to  its 
noon  ere  the  century  closes.  'Tray  with- 
out ceasing"  is  the  trumpet  call  to  the 
preachers  of  the  twentieth  century.  If  the 
twentieth  century  will  get  their  texts,  their 
thoughts,  their  words,  their  sermons  in  their 
closets,  the  next  century  will  find  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth.  The  old  sin- 
stained  and  sin-eclipsed  heaven  and  earth 
will  pass  away  under  the  power  of  a  pray- 
ing ministry. 

107 


XVIII. 

If  some  Christians  that  have  been  cotnplaining  of 
their  mi7tisters  had  said  and  acted  less  before  men  and 
had  applied  themselves  -with  all  their  7night  to  cry  to 
God  for  their  ministers — had^  as  it  ruere,  risen  and 
stormed  heaven  luith  their  humble,  fervent^  and  inces- 
sant  prayers  for  them — they  tuould  have  been  muck 
more  in  the  -way  of  success. — Jonathan  Edwards. 

Somehow  the  practice  of  praying  in  par- 
ticular for  the  preacher  has  fallen  into  dis- 
use or  become  discounted.  Occasionally 
have  we  heard  the  practice  arraigned  as  a 
disparagement  of  the  ministry,  being  a  pub- 
lic declaration  by  those  who  do  it  of  the  in- 
efficiency of  the  ministry.  It  offends  the 
pride  of  learning  and  self-sufficiency,  per- 
haps, and  these  ought  to  be  offended  and 
rebuked  in  a  ministry  that  is  so  derelict  as 
to  allow  them  to  exist. 

Prayer,   to   the  preacher,   is  not   simply 

the  duty  of  his  profession,  a  privilege,  but 

it  is  a  necessity.    Air  is  not  more  necessary 

to  the  lungs  than  prayer  is  to  the  preacher. 

io8 


Preacher  and  Praver. 

It  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  preacher 
to  pray.  It  is  an  absolute  necessity  that  the 
preacher  be  prayed  for.  These  two  propo- 
sitions are  wedded  into  a  union  which  ought 
never  to  know  any  divorce:  the  preacher 
must  pray;  the  preacher  must  he  prayed 
for.  It  will  take  all  the  praying  he  can  do, 
and  all  the  praying  he  can  get  done,  to  meet 
the  fearful  responsibilities  and  gain  the 
largest,  truest  success  in  his  great  work. 
The  true  preacher,  next  to  the  cultivation  of 
the  spirit  and  fact  of  prayer  in  himself,  in 
their  intensest  form,  covets  with  a  great 
covetousness  the  prayers  of  God's  people. 

The  holier  a  man  is,  the  more  does  he  es- 
timate prayer;  the  clearer  does  he  see  that 
God  gives  himself  to  the  praying  ones,  and 
that  the  measure  of  God's  revelation  to  the 
soul  is  the  measure  of  the  soul's  longing, 
importunate  prayer  for  God.  Salvation 
never  finds  its  way  to  a  prayerless  heart. 
The  Holy  Spirit  never  abides  in  a  prayer- 
less  spirit.  Preaching  never  edifies  a 
prayerless  soul.  Christ  knows  nothing  of 
prayerless  Christians.  The  gospel  can- 
109 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

not  be  projected  by  a  prayerless  preacher. 
Gifts,  talents,  education,  eloquence,  God's 
call,  cannot  abate  the  demand  of  prayer,  but 
only  intensify  the  necessity  for  the  preach- 
er to  pray  and  to  be  prayed  for.  The  more 
the  preacher's  eyes  are  opened  to  the  na- 
ture, responsibility,  and  difficulties  in  his 
work,  the  more  will  he  see,  and  if  he  be  a 
true  preacher  the  more  will  he  feel,  the  ne- 
cessity of  prayer;  not  only  the  increasing 
demand  to  pray  himself,  but  to  call  on  oth- 
ers to  help  him  by  their  prayers. 

Paul  is  an  illustration  of  this.  If  any 
man  could  project  the  gospel  by  dint  of  per- 
sonal force,  by  brain  power,  by  culture,  by 
personal  grace,  by  God's  apostolic  commis- 
sion, God's  extraordinary  call,  that  man 
was  Paul.  That  the  preacher  must  be  a 
man  given  to  prayer,  Paul  is  an  eminent  ex- 
ample. That  the  true  apostolic  preacher 
must  have  the  prayers  of  other  good  people 
to  give  to  his  ministry  its  full  quota  of 
success,  Paul  is  a  preeminent  example.  He 
asks,  he  covets,  he  pleads  in  an  impassioned 
way  for  the  help  of  all  God's  saints.  He 
no 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

knew  that  in  the  spiritual  realm,  as  else- 
where, in  union  there  is  strength ;  that  the 
concentration  and  aggregation  of  faith,  de- 
sire, and  prayer  increased  the  volume  of 
spiritual  force  until  it  became  overwhelm- 
ing and  irresistible  in  its  power.  Units 
of  prayer  combined,  like  drops  of  water, 
make  an  ocean  which  defies  resistance.  So 
Paul,  with  his  clear  and  full  apprehension 
of  spiritual  dynamics,  determined  to  make 
his  ministry  as  impressive,  as  eternal,  as  ir- 
resistible as  the  ocean,  by  gathering  all  the 
scattered  units  of  prayer  and  precipitating 
them  on  his  ministry.  May  not  the  solu- 
tion of  Paul's  preeminence  in  labors  and 
results,  and  impress  on  the  Church  and  the 
world,  be  found  in  this  fact  that  he  was 
able  to  center  on  himself  and  his  ministry 
more  of  prayer  than  others  ?  To  his  breth- 
ren at  Rome  he  wrote:  "Now  I  beseech 
you,  brethren,  for  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ's 
sake,  and  for  the  love  of  the  Spirit,  that  ye 
strive  together  with  me  in  prayers  to  God 
for  me."  To  the  Ephesians  he  says :  "Pray- 
ing always  with  all  prayer  and  supplication 
III 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

in  the  Spirit,  and  watching  thereunto  with 
all  perseverance  and  supplication  for  all 
saints;  and  for  me,  that  utterance  may  be 
given  unto  me,  that  I  may  open  my  mouth 
boldly,  to  make  known  the  mystery  of  the 
gospel."  To  the  Colossians  he  emphasizes: 
**Withal  praying  also  for  us,  that  God  would 
open  unto  us  a  door  of  utterance,  to  speak 
the  mystery  of  Christ,  for  which  I  am  also 
in  bonds :  that  I  may  make  it  manifest  as  I 
ought  to  speak."  To  the  Thessalonians  he 
says  sharply,  strongly:  ''Brethren,  pray  for 
us."  Paul  calls  on  the  Corinthian  Church 
to  help  him:  "Ye  also  helping  together  by 
prayer  for  us."  This  was  to  be  part  of 
their  work.  They  were  to  lay  to  the  help- 
ing hand  of  prayer.  He  in  an  additional 
and  closing  charge  to  the  Thessalonian 
Church  about  the  importance  and  necessi- 
ty of  their  prayers  says :  "Finally,  brethren, 
pray  for  us,  that  the  word  of  the  Lord  may 
have  free  course,  and  be  glorified,  even  as 
it  is  with  you :  and  that  we  may  be  deliv- 
ered from  unreasonable  and  wicked  men." 
He  impresses  the  Philippians  that  all  his 

113 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

trials  and  opposition  can  be  made  subserv- 
ient to  the  spread  of  the  gospel  by  the  ef- 
ficiency of  their  prayers  for  him.  Philemon 
was  to  prepare  a  lodging  for  him,  for 
through  Philemon's  prayer  Paul  was  to  be 
his  guest. 

Paul's  attitude  on  this  question  illustrates 
his  humility  and  his  deep  insight  into  the 
spiritual  forces  which  project  the  gospel. 
More  than  this,  it  teaches  a  lesson  for  all 
times,  that  if  Paul  was  so  dependent  on 
the  prayers  of  God's  saints  to  give  his 
ministry  success,  how  much  greater  the  ne- 
cessity that  the  prayers  of  God's  saints  be 
centered  on  the  ministry  of  to-day ! 

Paul  did  not  feel  that  this  urgent  plea 
for  prayer  was  to  lower  his  dignity,  lessen 
his  influence,  or  depreciate  his  piety.  What 
if  it  did?  Let  dignity  go,  let  influence  be 
destroyed,  let  his  reputation  be  marred — 
he  must  have  their  prayers.  Called,  com- 
missioned, chief  of  the  Apostles  as  he  was, 
all  his  equipment  was  imperfect  without  the 
prayers  of  his  people.  He  wrote  letters  ev- 
er}'where,  urging  them  to  pray  for  him. 
8  113 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

Do  you  pray  for  your  preacher?  Do  you 
pray  for  him  in  secret?  PubHc  prayers  are 
of  little  worth  unless  they  are  founded  on 
or  followed  up  by  private  praying.  The 
praying  ones  are  to  the  preacher  as  Aaron 
and  Hur  were  to  Moses.  They  hold  up  his 
hands  and  decide  the  issue  that  is  so  fierce- 
ly raging  around  them. 

The  plea  and  purpose  of  the  apostles 
were  to  put  the  Church  to  praying.  They 
did  not  ignore  the  grace  of  cheerful  giv- 
ing. They  were  not  ignorant  of  the  place 
which  religious  activity  and  work  occupied 
in  the  spiritual  life;  but  not  one  nor  all  of 
these,  in  apostolic  estimate  or  urgency, 
could  at  all  compare  in  necessity  and  im- 
portance with  prayer.  The  most  sacred 
and  urgent  pleas  were  used,  the  most  fervid 
exhortations,  the  most  comprehensive  and 
arousing  words  were  uttered  to  enforce  the 
all-important  obligation  and  necessity  of 
prayer. 

"Put  the  saints  everywhere  to  praying" 
is  the  burden  of  the  apostolic  effort  and  the 
keynote  of  apostolic  success.  Jesus  Christ 
114 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

had  striven  to  do  this  in  the  days  of  his 
personal  ministry.  As  he  was  moved  by 
infinite  compassion  at  the  ripened  fields  of 
earth  perishing  for  lack  of  laborers — and 
pausing  in  his  own  praying — he  tries  to 
awaken  the  stupid  sensibilities  of  his  dis- 
ciples to  the  duty  of  prayer  as  he  charges 
them,  "Pray  ye  the  Lord  of  the  harvest  that 
he  will  send  forth  laborers  into  his  har- 
vest." "And  he  spake  a  parable  unto  them 
to  this  end,  that  men  ought  always  to  pray 
and  not  to  faint." 

1^5 


XIX. 

This  perpetual  hurry  of  business  and  company  ruinn 
vte  in  soul  if  not  in  body.  More  solitude  and  earlier 
Juturs!  I  suspect  I  have  been  allotting  habitually 
too  little  time  to  religious  exercises^  as  private  devo- 
tion and  religious  meditation.  Scripture-reading ,  etc. 
Hence  I  am  lean  and  cold  and  hard.  I  had  better  allot 
two  hours  or  an  hour  and  a  half  daily.  I  have  been 
keeping  too  late  hours,  and  hence  have  had  but  a  hur- 
ried  half  hour  in  a  morning  to  myself.  Surely  the 
experience  of  all  good  men  confirms  the  proposition  that 
without  a  due  measure  of  private  devotions  the  soul 
will  grow  lean.  But  all  may  be  done  through  prayer 
— almighty  prayer,  I  am  ready  to  say — and  why  not? 
For  that  it  is  almighty  is  only  through  the  gracious 
ordination  of  the  God  of  love  and  truth.  O  then^  pray^ 
fray, pray! — William  Wilberforce. 

Our  devotions  are  not  measured  by  the 
clock,  but  time  is  of  their  essence.  The 
ability  to  wait  and  stay  and  press  belongs 
essentially  to  our  intercourse  with  God. 
Hurry,  everywhere  unseeming  and  dam- 
aging, is  so  to  an  alarming  extent  in  the 
^eat  business  of  communion  with  God. 
Ii6 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

Short  devotions  are  the  bane  of  deep  piety. 
Calmness,  grasp,  strength,  are  never  the 
companions  of  hurry.  Short  devotions  de- 
plete spiritual  vigor,  arrest  spiritual  prog- 
ress, sap  spiritual  foundations,  blight  the 
root  and  bloom  of  spiritual  life.  They  are 
the  prolific  source  of  backsliding,  the  sure 
indication  of  a  superficial  piety;  they  de- 
ceive, blight,  rot  the  seed,  and  impoverish 
the  soil. 

It  is  true  that  Bible  prayers  in  word  and 
print  are  short,  but  the  praying  men  of  the 
Bible  were  with  God  through  many  a  sweet 
and  holy  wrestling  hour.  They  won  by 
few  words  but  long  waiting.  The  prayers 
Moses  records  may  be  short,  but  Moses 
prayed  to  God  with  fastings  and  mighty 
cryings  forty  days  and  nights. 

The  statement  of  Elijah's  praying  may  be 
condensed  to  a  few  brief  paragraphs,  but 
doubtless  Elijah,  who  when  "praying  he 
prayed,"  spent  many  hours  of  fiery  strug- 
gle and  lofty  intercourse  with  God  before 
he  could,  with  assured  boldness,  say  to 
Ahab,  *'There  shall  not  be  dew  nor  rain 
117 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

these  years,  but  according  to  my  word." 
The  verbal  brief  of  Paul's  prayers  is  short, 
but  Paul  "prayed  night  and  day  exceeding- 
ly." The  "Lord's  Prayer"  is  a  divine  epit- 
ome for  infant  lips,  but  the  man  Christ 
Jesus  prayed  many  an  all-night  ere  his  work 
was  done;  and  his  all-night  and  long-sus- 
tained devotions  gave  to  his  work  its  finish 
and  perfection,  and  to  his  character  the 
fullness  and  glory  of  its  divinity. 

Spiritual  work  is  taxing  work,  and  men 
are  loath  to  do  it.  Praying,  true  praying, 
costs  an  outlay  of  serious  attention  and  of 
time,  which  flesh  and  blood  do  not  relish. 
Few  persons  are  made  of  such  strong  fiber 
that  they  will  make  a  costly  outlay  when 
surface  work  will  pass  as  well  In  the  mar- 
ket. We  can  habituate  ourselves  to  our  beg- 
garly praying  until  it  looks  well  to  us,  at 
least  it  keeps  up  a  decent  form  and  quiets 
conscience — the  deadliest  of  opiates !  We 
can  slight  our  praying,  and  not  realize  the 
peril  till  the  foundations  are  gone.  Hur- 
ried devotions  make  weak  faith,  feeble  con- 
victions, questionable  piety.  To  be  little 
ii8 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

with  God  is  to  be  little  for  God.  To  cut 
short  the  praying  makes  the  whole  religious 
character  short,  scrimp,  niggardly,  and 
slovenly. 

It  takes  good  time  for  the  full  flow  of 
God  into  the  spirit.  Short  devotions  cut 
the  pipe  of  God's  full  flow.  It  takes  time 
in  the  secret  places  to  get  the  full  revela- 
tion of  God.  Little  time  and  hurry  mar  the 
picture. 

Henry  Martyn  laments  that  "want  of 
private  devotional  reading  and  shortness  of 
prayer  through  incessant  sermon-making 
had  produced  much  strangeness  between 
God  and  his  soul."  He  judged  that  he  had 
dedkated  too  much  time  to  public  minis- 
trations and  too  little  to  private  communion 
with  God.  He  was  much  impressed  to  set 
apart  times  for  fasting  and  to  devote  times 
for  solemn  prayer.  Resulting  from  this  he 
records:  **Was  assisted  this  morning  to 
pray  for  two  hours."  Said  William  Wil- 
berforce,  the  peer  of  kings :  "I  must  secure 
more  time  for  private  devotions.  I  have 
been  living  far  too  public  for  me.  The 
119 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

shortening  of  private  devotions  starves  *^c 
soul;  it  grows  lean  and  faint.  I  have  been 
keeping  too  late /hours."  Of  a  failure  in 
Parliament  he  says:  *'Let  me  record  my 
grief  and  shame,  and  all,  probably,  from 
private  devotions  having  been  contracted, 
and  so  God  let  me  stumble."  More  soli- 
tude and  earlier  hours  was  his  remedy. 

More  time  and  early  hours  for  prayer 
would  act  like  magic  to  revive  and  invig- 
orate many  a  decayed  spiritual  Ufe.  More 
time  and  early  hours  for  prayer  would  be 
manifest  in  holy  living.  A  holy  life  would 
not  be  so  rare  or  so  difficult  a  thing  if  our 
devotions  were  not  so  short  and  hurried. 
A  Qiristly  temper  in  its  sweet  and  pas- 
sionless fragrance  would  not  be  so  alien 
and  hopeless  a  heritage  if  our  closet  stay 
were  lengthened  and  intensified.  We  live 
shabbily  because  we  pray  meanly.  Plenty 
of  time  to  feast  in  our  closets  will  bring 
marrow  and  fatness  to  our  lives.  Our  abil- 
ity to  stay  with  God  in  our  closet  measures 
our  ability  to  stay  with  God  out  of  the 
closet.  Hasty  closet  visits  are  deceptive. 
12a 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

defaulting.  We  are  not  only  deluded  by 
them,  but  we  are  losers  by  them  in  many 
ways  and  in  many  rich  legacies.  Tarrying 
in  the  closet  instructs  and  wins.  We  are 
taught  by  it,  and  the  greatest  victories  are 
often  the  results  of  great  waiting — waiting 
till  words  and  plans  are  exhausted,  and  si- 
lent and  patient  waiting  gains  the  crown. 
Jesus  Christ  asks  with  an  affronted  em- 
phasis, "Shall  not  God  avenge  his  own  elect 
which  cry  day  and  night  unto  him?" 

To  pray  is  the  greatest  thing  we  can  do: 
and  to  do  it  well  there  must  be  calmness, 
time,  and  deliberation;  otherwise  it  is  de- 
graded into  the  littlest  and  meanest  of 
things.  True  praying  has  the  largest  re- 
sults for  good ;  and  poor  praying,  the  least. 
We  cannot  do  too  much  of  real  praying; 
we  cannot  do  too  little  of  the  sham.  We 
must  learn  anew  the  worth  of  prayer,  en- 
ter anew  the  school  of  prayer.  There  is 
nothing  which  it  takes  more  time  to  learn. 
And  if  we  would  learn  the  wondrous  art, 
we  must  not  give  a  fragment  here  and 
there — "A  little  talk  with  Jesus,"  as  the  tiny 

121 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

saintlets  sing — but  we  must  demand  and 
hold  with  iron  grasp  the  best  hours  of  the 
day  for  God  and  prayer,  or  there  will  be 
no  praying  worth  the  name. 

This,  however,  is  not  a  day  of  prayer. 
Few  men  there  are  who  pray.  Prayer  is 
defamed  by  preacher  and  priest.  In  these 
days  of  hurry  and  bustle,  of  electricity  and 
steam,  men  will  not  take  time  to  pray. 
Preachers  there  are  who  "say  prayers"  as 
a  part  of  their  programme,  on  regular  or 
state  occasions;  but  who  "stirs  himself  up 
to  take  hold  upon  God  ?"  Who  prays  as 
Jacob  prayed — till  he  is  crowned  as  a  pre- 
vailing, princely  intercessor?  Who  prays 
as  Elijah  prayed — ^till  all  the  locked-up 
forces  of  nature  were  unsealed  and  a  fam- 
ine-stricken land  bloomed  as  the  garden  of 
God?  Who  prayed  as  Jesus  Christ  prayed 
as  out  upon  the  mountain  he  "continued  all 
night  in  prayer  to  God?"  Tlie  apostles 
**gave  themselves  to  prayer" — ^the  most  dif- 
ficult thing  to  get  men  or  even  the  preach- 
ers to  do.  Laymen  there  are  who  will  give 
their  money — some  of  them  in  rich  abun- 

122 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

dance — but  they  will  not  "give  themselves" 
to  prayer,  without  which  their  money  is 
but  a  curse.  There  are  plenty  of  preachers 
who  will  preach  and  deliver  great  and  elo- 
quent addresses  on  the  need  of  revival  and 
the  spread  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  but  not 
many  there  are  who  will  do  that  without 
which  all  preaching  b.nd  organizing  are 
worse  than  vain — pray.  It  is  out  of  date, 
almost  a  lost  art,  and  the  greatest  benefac- 
tor this  age  could  have  is  the  man  who  will 
bring  the  preachers  and  the  Church  back 
to  prayer. 

123 


XX. 

I  judge  that  my  prayer  is  more  than  the  devil  him- 
self; if  it  ivere  otherwise^  Luther  would  have  fared 
differeiitly  long  before  this,  Tet  men  ivill  not  see  and 
achnovjledge  the  great  -wonders  or  miracles  God  works 
in  my  behalf.  If  I  should  neglect  frayer  but  a  single 
day,  I  should  lose  a  great  deal  of  the  fire  of  faith, 
• — Martin  Luther. 

Only  glimpses  of  the  great  importance 
of  prayer  could  the  apostles  get  before  Pen- 
tecost. But  the  Spirit  coming  and  filling 
on  Pentecost  elevated  prayer  to  its  vital 
and  all-commanding  position  in  the  gospel 
of  Christ.  The  call  now  of  prayer  to  every 
saint  is  the  Spirit's  loudest  and  most  exigent 
call.  Sainthood's  piety  is  made,  refined, 
perfected,  by  prayer.  The  gospel  moves 
with  slow  and  timid  pace  when  the  saints 
are  not  at  their  prayers  early  and  late  and 
long. 

Where  are  the  Christly  leaders  who  can 
124 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

teach  the  modern  saints  how  to  pray  and 
put  them  at  it?  Do  we  know  we  are  rais- 
ing up  a  prayerless  set  of  saints?  Where 
are  the  apostoHc  leaders  who  can  put  God's 
people  to  praying?  Let  them  come  to  the 
front  and  do  the  work,  and  it  will  be  the 
greatest  work  which  can  be  done.  An  in- 
crease of  educational  facilities  and  a  great 
increase  of  money  force  will  be  the  direst 
curse  to  religion  if  they  are  not  sanctified 
by  more  and  better  praying  than  we  are 
doing.  More  praying  will  not  come  as  a 
matter  of  course.  The  campaign  for  the 
twentieth  or  thirtieth  century  fund  will  not 
help  our  praying  but  hinder  if  we  are  not 
careful.  Nothing  but  a  specific  effort  from 
a  praying  leadership  will  avail.  The  chief 
ones  must  lead  in  the  apostolic  effort  to 
radicate  the  vital  importance  and  fact  of 
prayer  in  the  heart  and  life  of  the  Church. 
None  but  praying  leaders  can  have  praying 
followers.  Praying  apostles  will  beget 
praying  saints.  A  praying  pulpit  will  beget 
praying  pews.  We  do  greatly  need  some- 
body who  can  set  the  saints  to  this  business 
125 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

of  praying.  We  are  not  a  generation  of 
praying  saints.  Nonpraying  saints  are  a 
beggarly  gang  of  saints  who  have  neither 
the  ardor  nor  the  beauty  nor  the  power  of 
saints.  Who  will  restore  this  breach?  The 
greatest  will  he  be  of  reformers  and  apos- 
tles, who  can  set  the  Church  to  praying. 

We  put  it  as  our  most  sober  judgment 
that  the  great  need  of  the  Church  in  this 
and  all  ages  is  men  of  such  commanding 
faith,  of  such  unsullied  holiness,  of  such 
marked  spiritual  vigor  and  consuming  zeal, 
that  their  prayers,  faith,  lives,  and  ministry 
will  be  of  such  a  radical  and  aggressive 
form  as  to  work  spiritual  revolutions  which 
will  form  eras  in  individual  and  Church 
life. 

We  do  not  mean  men  who  get  up  sensa- 
tional stirs  by  novel  devices,  nor  those  who 
attract  by  a  pleasing  entertainment;  but 
men  who  can  stir  things,  and  work  revolu- 
tions by  the  preaching  of  God's  Word  and 
by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  revolu- 
tions which  change  the  whole  current  of 
thing^s. 

126 


Preacher  and  Prayer. 

Natural  ability  and  educational  advan- 
tages do  not  figure  as  factors  in  this  mat- 
ter; but  capacity  for  faith,  the  ability  to 
pray,  the  power  of  thorough  consecration, 
the  ability  of  self-littleness,  an  absolute  los- 
ing of  one's  self  in  God's  glory,  and  an 
ever-present  and  insatiable  yearning  and 
seeking  after  all  the  fullness  of  God — men 
who  can  set  the  Church  ablaze  for  God ;  not 
in  a  noisy,  showy  way,  but  with  an  intense 
and  quiet  heat  that  melts  and  moves  every- 
thing for  God. 

God  can  work  wonders  if  he  can  get  a 
suitable  man.  Men  can  work  wonders  if 
they  can  get  God  to  lead  them.  The  full 
endowment  of  the  spirit  that  turned  the 
world  upside  down  would  be  eminently  use- 
ful in  these  latter  days.  Men  who  can  stir 
things  mightily  for  God,  whose  spiritual 
revolutions  change  the  whole  aspect  of 
things,  are  the  universal  need  of  the 
Church. 

The  Church  has  never  been  without 
these  men ;  they  adorn  its  history ;  they  are 
the  standing  miracles  of  the  divinity  of 
137 


Preacher  and  Prayer, 

the  Church;  their  example  and  history  are 
an  unfailing  inspiration  and  blessing.  An 
increase  in  their  number  and  power  should 
be  our  prayer. 

That  which  has  been  done  in  spiritual 
matters  can  be  done  again,  and  be  better 
done.  This  was  Christ's  view.  He  said* 
"Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you.  He  that  be- 
lieveth  on  me,  the  works  that  I  do  shall  he 
do  also;  and  greater  works  than  these  shall 
he  do ;  because  I  go  unto  my  Father."  The 
past  has  not  exhausted  the  possibilities  nor 
the  demands  for  doing  great  things  for 
God.  The  Church  that  is  dependent  on  its 
past  history  for  its  miracles  of  power  and 
grace  is  a  fallen  Church. 

God  wants  elect  men — men  out  of  whom 
self  and  the  world  have  gone  by  a  severe 
crucifixion,  by  a  bankruptcy  vv^hich  has  so 
totally  ruined  self  and  the  world  that  there 
is  neither  hope  nor  desire  of  recovery ;  men 
who  by  this  insolvency  and  crucifixion  have 
turned  toward  God  perfect  hearts. 

Let  us  pray  ardently  that  God's  promise 
to  prayer  may  be  more  than  realized. 
128 


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